2023-12-09: Of Apostasy and Apotheosis
- Log: Of Apostasy and Apotheosis
- Cast: Xander Lovell, Riley Arwell, Redi Hayworth, Eleanor Klein, Li Ruzhen, Hicalu Wilwisp, Dean Stark, Ruth Pauling, Billy Lee Black, Hannah Curie, Ida Everstead-Rey, Yulie Ahtreide, Shige Kiwako, Avril Vent Fleur
- Where: Saint Heim Papal State - Grand Cathedral of Granas
- Date: December 09, 2023
- Summary: When there are no gods left to pray to, what choice is left but to grip fate by the Claw and ascend?
===========<* Saint Heim Papal State - Grand Cathedral of Granas *>=========== The Grand Cathedral stands in the very heart of Saint Heim, an eternal monument to the glory of God and Granas. Its towering central spire can be seen for miles around--at night, the eternal flame inside casts light through dozens of crystalline prisms, like a lighthouse for the faithful. Massive buttresses on its sides support the central structure, and evoke a pair of angelic wings. The whole edifice is made of pure white marble, and its surface is covered with intricate carvings. Every inch is a testament to the devotion of the faithful. The Cathedral is no less grandiose inside. Its nave is three stories tall, and it can easily accommodate hundreds of worshippers. Stained-glass windows depict scenes from the Church's holy scriptures, and allow light into the sanctuary. A red carpet leads across the colorful stone floor, and ends at an elevated pulpit. From this pulpit, the Archbishop--and even the Pope herself--deliver sermons and proclamations with all the weight of the Papacy behind them. BGM: Grandia 2 - Cathedral
DC: Hannah Curie switches forms to Troubled Mage! DC: Eleanor Klein switches forms to Eleanor, Sage of Light! DC: Redi Hayworth switches forms to Lost Letter Carrier Redi! DC: Billy Lee Black switches forms to Etone Billy! DC: Li Ruzhen switches forms to What've I gotten myself into now...?!
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
The sky is blacker than night.
BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rfbb2ZE5lco
A storm of darkness surrounds the Granas Grand Cathedral, pulsating with hunger and devouring the light cast by the eternal flame. The feeling of being watched by a voracious instinct is so potent and profane that it resonates like an omen. Those with oracular abilities may be hit with an abstract vision invading their preternatural senses... evil was sealed here. It scratches and rakes at a void, helpless and alone. A maw bites down and breaks its shackles.
As if in celebration, thorned branches and carnivorous plants burst from the ground with wild abandon, feeding on the release of dark power and corrupting the once beautiful gardens outside the cathedral. For a Drifter, they are easily dispatched, but the local populace scrambles in fear. Floral maws chew at the earth and architecture, as if already keen to devour the world one mouthful at a time. Others stretch for the sky, darkness giving way to reveal the silver star. A flytrap superimposes its silhouette over it and snaps shut, blackness refilling the space in that same instant. It's a too-playful puppet show for its implication: one day, the prophecy may vie for more than Filgaia alone.
It only takes the first cry about the Day of Darkness for the panic to spread. This threat is far too localized for the prophecy to be coming true today, but a display like this promises the presence of a Dark One. All signs point to such a presence having boldly invaded the Cathedral itself... the Cathedral and its ornate architecture and elegantly carved marble, with its pillars once standing resolute, its lustrous floors and vibrant red carpet... all desecrated by battle and dark sorcery, scuffed from strife and bitten into by the erosion of roiling brambles. Buds blossom open, glowing with eerie light. It is the only light here -- none shines through the stained glass windows, dimming the holy images contained within.
A figure stands at the pulpit, slight in form and yet improbably holding a fully armored Cathedral Knight by the throat, dangling them off the edge. He is of ashen complexion, missing his left eye, and with unruly, dark hair spilling to his waist. Though he may be dressed in the robes of a priest that must have once served as a disguise, this is most certainly Xander: the grumpier half of the Fangs of Valmar.
"Don't be so impatient," he tells the knight. "I only needed to take one life today. Rest." Xander squeezes, choking the knight unconscious -- and only unconscious -- before casting their body aside.
Not with a hand...
...with a Claw.
Monstrous scales crawl over the flesh of his right arm, his sleeve brutally torn from his arm's transformation into a monstrous limb. He's splattered with blood, and some of it may well be his own the way his posture slumps. Dark miasma seethes around him, inhaled and exhaled as Xander gasps for air, every exhausted draw of breath baring his unnatural Fangs. He huffs a broken sound as he looks at the situation he's in. Picking a fight with the church. Soul steeping in a second serving of darkness. A ravenous instinct from a dark god signaling its intentions... and his own trembling body as its nascent vessel.
Xander begins to laugh.
And laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and --
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Riley and Xander have never had the slightest interest in bringing about the Day of Darkness. But life with the Fangs has imposed certain rules and conditions upon them. The one that most crucially defines their lives is the call to sacrifice the lives Valmar will need to fuel the end of the world. Once enough lifeblood has been offered to this cause, the fate that awaits them is a bleak one, foretold to them in a dream as some kind of devouring by Valmar. This is simply the role of the Fangs as the Part of sacrifice. That deadline had arrived, with the thorns beginning to overtake them one last time, and no way to push them back with another sacrifice without forfeiting their own lives in the process.
But, with the offer of Lunar, Xander has changed that paradigm. To devour twice the worlds, Valmar will need twice the offerings. Which extends their mission. Extends their lives.
Riley felt it through their shared connection with the Fangs. The deal Xander made, and the meaning, the hope it would offer them both.
This is why, perhaps inexplicably, the menacing clawed figure is captured suddenly in a joyful embrace, Riley springing upon him to gather him up and tearfully cover him with kisses.
"Xander, you're a genius! You're a miracle worker! That's like three more years! I can't believe you did it! You saved us again!!!"
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
-- the delirious laughter abruptly cuts short with an undignified utterance of surprise as Xander is beset upon with affection.
"Riley? What are you doing here?!" He winces. "Do you have to do this in front of the knights? I'm trying to commit blasphemy."
The knights are too unconscious to care. Drifters, on the other hand...
<Pose Tracker> Redi Hayworth has posed.
Redi Hayworth is in Saint Heim Papal State to do what she always does: deliver the mail! In this case, it was a letter to a priest that had been lost, and she found it in Sylvaland then came over.
She cam with friends!
In this case, she brought Yulie Ahtreide and Hicalu Wilwisp with her, because it was a bit of a trip and it was a chance for sightseeing. A massive cathedral; a city ran by the Granas Church; all of the sorts of things that were worth a look.
A little depressing, somehow, though, Redi thinks. She isn't the most devout Granasite.
The sudden flood of darkness -- the panic throughout the city -- and the sheer cloud of darkness lingering over the Grand Cathedral makes that sad feeling turn to one of sheer dread. "Oh--oh no," she says to Yulie and Hicalu. "Let's... let's go!"
She takes off in a run.
She comes through the doors in time to see the knight fall, thrown by the Claw. The letter carrier's eyes shoot wide open; they're pale blue, glowing slightly by virtue of the unnatural gloom.
"R-Riley!?" she shouts, her mouth hanging open. "Xander...? What--what are the two of you doing!?"
She looks backward, at the ones she came with. Redi's staff in in her hands, but it sags. She looks, suddenly, uncertain. She came with friends. But...
She's facing someone who is a friend, too.
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
"No!" Eleanor had cried, sitting up from where she was seated after zoning out in vision once again. She was ashen, horrified. As is often the case with her visions, it was traumatic, terrible...
But not just violent. No, it was worse.
"We have to stop it," she'd said, interupting her lesson and standing up immediately. They'd been at Ida's home, but Eleanor can stay no longer.
When asked what was wrong, she had said only:
"Xander. Xander Lovell. We have to stop him."
When they gathered those they could, she pulled a green stone, and prepared to work her magic through it.
In a flash of green, they appear outside the Granas Grand Cathedral, and Eleanor Klein is running towards the shadow, heedless of the danger. She must avert her vision. She must see that this future does not come to pass.
The others will have to follow if they want to stop her; she runs as fast as she can, into the cathedral, until she sees... battle. Dark sorcery. Rotting brambles, and eerie light.
"XANDER!" Eleanor calls, the blonde elf skidding to a stop just before one of those blossoms. She hasn't gone for her gun, yet. She is in orange, a skirt suit with various magical talismans.
"Xander..."
She looks to Riley, as he seems so joyful. "Riley," she starts. "You can't..."
"Xander," Eleanor says, looking to Redi for a moment and back to her target. "Please. Don't do this. Don't do something you can never take back."
"Tell me it isn't too late. That you haven't already--"
She stops short. "That Claw..."
<Pose Tracker> Li Ruzhen has posed.
I beg of you, please find out what happened to my father...
For the penitent, the emotion behind the pleading words of those left behind hold a special weight that, no matter how much they try to turn a deaf ear, cannot be ignored. This was one such episode for Li Ruzhen, on an assignment to the Papal State -- a place an unbeliever like her doesn't usually go to.
It was a messy and sordid job; a back alley, the smell of gunpowder and oil, the heavy rain that washes over all like a baptism... a dead body in a priest's frock... a last-minute journal, a confession of sins. Deception, tragedy, conspiracy...
By the time she arrives back at the Cathedral, the incident has taken full root. "Darnit... what now?" she scratches her head, grabbing hold of a nearby panicked passerby.
"The Day of Darkness! The Day of Darkness is here! The Cathedral--"
Shoot... what do you do now, Li Ruzhen? By all rights you should turn away. Whatever happens where even angels fear to tread is none of your business. You've done enough, haven't you? You've listened to the guilty confession of a lost soul...
...
...
Darnit!
The detective is on a full sprint in the opposite direction to the escaping townsfolk, up the stairs as she stares aghast at some of the flora that've risen beyond the stones of the cathedral. "What is this...?"
The Wolf beastwoman hops onto the railings and sprints past a flytrap that's got her name written on it, tumbling towards the door as she lunges for the grand hall within and--
Xander chokes the armored knight and casts their body aside... with a Claw.
His laughter rings through the Church's grand hall, a dark miasma seething around his form; Ruzhen grimaces deeply and shakes her head, drawing her... her dinky little .38 special. Hardly a weapon that can contend against the powers of Valmar.
He's not alone. Another man is there, drawing close to cover him in kisses and praise. A pair of lovers, shrouded in darkness... there's a honesty there that some part of Li Ruzhen can appreciate. Unrestrained. But still--
The other Drifters are trickling in, questioning what they're doing. She notices one of them, Eleanor. "Eleanor?!"
The detective springs to action, trying to grab at the nearest unconscious body, checking for a pulse, and draggging one of the armored bodies away. Practical minded... and also, life-saving-minded. "They're still alive. Hurry, get them out of here!"
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
Hicalu, Assistant Mailman, followed Redi here today. A fluffy Fennec man with too-large ears and tail, his arms and legs are completely covered in Symbology ink, and his clothes are a breezy Baskar affair, all netting along his exposed midriff and shorts to show off his strappy boots.
"I got a bad feelin'," he complains, as they come to the cathedral. And -- there. He's not the only one. "H--huh?!" He exclaims, as Redi takes off. "Hey! Wait! Redi! YOU'RE RUNNIN' THE WRONG W-WAY!!"
Grasping at his oversized ears, he yells, "AAAAA," and follows her along. "Can't b-b-b-beliEVE-- Redi! Redi, wait! Waiiiit!!!" Hopefully, Yulie is with him! This is way too scary to do alone!
And he almost runs into Redi's back, when she gapes at Xander and Riley. "Ooof!!" He yelps, staggering back, and peeking out from behind her --
"oh no,"
They've met.
"W-what... what're y-y-y-you... h-- hey, is he..." He looks to the fallen Knight, too scared to go over there and check if he's dead.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Lately, Dean has been wrapped up in helping make a rocket to take everyone (for a given value of "everyone") to Marduk. A lot of his friends are also involved in it, so when he was spending some time at Ida's with Avril, he too was there when Eleanor got that vision of something terrible--of something that needed an immediate response.
"Let's get going!" he'd said without hesitation, before knowing any details at all, because that's just how Dean rolls. Of course, knowing that it's something to do with Xander and Riley... doesn't stop him, but it does get him to grimace.
He knows that there's probably no way to save his friends. He's tried very hard to find a way and has been unsuccessful at every turn. He knows they need to be stopped--that he can't let them do what they need to to save themselves. But he doesn't have to like it.
"Xander! Riley!" he calls as he emerges from the light of Eleanor's teleportation and runs up to the foot of the Granas Cathedral. Everything is dark, and he's quick to shoot down any of the horrific vegetation, but something's wrong. He doesn't get just what, but--
But it's obvious *something* happened. That knight Xander tosses aside is at least still alive, as Dean realizes when he rushes over to him, but Dean naturally looks over at Xander, and at Riley as he covers him with kisses. It would be sweet under other circumstances. Right now, even if everything else was normal, it's obvious their situation has gotten worse just by looking at Xander's Claw. "What did you guys *do*?"
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
SOME TIME AGO
Saint Heim is not a place of happy memories for Ruth - what is? - though a quirk of fate saw her serve as an escort to a merchant caravan on virtue of the way being beset by a surviving Odessa cell. She did her job. Someone within the caravan wondered, looking upon her. Something clicked when she saw the Granasian rosary, but she didn't have the courage to approach her.
Only once they were within the city itself did she inquire by name.
"Sister Ruth...?"
A name Ruth hadn't heard in over ten years.
SHORTLY BEFORE NOW
Ruth humored the conversation. She sat somewhere on a wall next to some other statues while the Songstress made an earnest attempt to connect with her. She was considered one of the best Reaper hunters of her day. The Etones were gone. Odessa is, by and large, no more. Surely... she could return to Granas' Light, shouldn't she? No matter how long she tried to find warmth in Darkness instead.
Ruth didn't answer.
ACTUAL NOW
Bedlam. Screaming. The former Celesti terror almost seems as she's disassociating from it all as she goes inside the Cathedral at far too sedate a pace when Eleanor and others suddenly appear in, Ruzhen is helping move the wounded aside, and a mail carrier and her friends have all converged upon something horrific.
Ruth's eyes trail to the enormous monstrous claw on Xander's person, drawing her rifle and slamming the bladed end of it into once immaculate, beautiful carpet, resting her hand atop it and feeling a strange thought of revulsion looking upon her own. Her head bows.
"Xander. Riley." Her voice might be too quiet to hear. She's not sure she's speaking any higher than the Malevolence-fueled pressure in her mind.
"Sister Ruth!!" Calls the newly formed acquaintance who might be projecting a bit too much hope onto her. "Surely... Granas will send His champions...!"
Ruth's breathing steadies towards stillness.
"It is funny, isn't it. Xander..." She's starting to crack a smile as she flexes the fingers of her hands with that tension about ready to spring.
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
An evil unspeakable roaring over the Granas Grand Cathedral. There is an order dedicated to fighting such things...or, there was. They said there was. But those men were killed, there order broken by the very madmen who had usurped their name. The Ethos are gone. Granas' flock lies bare before the wolves.
The messages had flooded to his Memory Cube when he arrived back at the Orphanage. Mounting up to Renmazuo and out across the skies of Aquvy had taken a scant few minutes more. But was there even anything TO do? Renmazuo's cape flapped in the wind as it crashed into the yard, wrist blasters chunking demon plants crawling up sacred statues and shattering the stone beneath, too. How much of Granas was a lie, his thoughts buzzed at him. How much of my God is false? Stone's fleshless face leered at him behind his eyelids, a sneering confidence. How many men have you killed in the name of MY God, he laughs.
Deep blue Etone robes roar around him as he leaps from the cockpit. Two more shots take down crawling vine-monsters. He whips his longbarrel out from behind him, throws it into the air and plugs a third, before catching the longbarrel and blasting an Ether beam through the seed-brain of something that used to be a rose bush that Bishop Stone used to take him to see. He recognizes it; a particular bloom he'd damaged as a boy. As for after that...
...Billy takes some solace that this is not his second trip through a cathedral full of the dead.
Finally, the doors at the back of the room push open, slowly.
Three shots ring out, one two three, each for Xander's center mass.
The shooter is a young man of not even twenty, with a pale face and silver hair and pale blue eyes, garbed in the robes of an Etone.
Having shot, he steps forward, plucking single shells from his robes to feed into his gunsmoke revolver. "Pray tell, what precisely is this?" the last living Etone asks, ice in his tone.
GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Xander Lovell with B and J M686! GS: Billy Lee Black has gained 1 Combo! GS: Billy Lee Black has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
Hannah takes her lessons very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that it takes her a moment to to realize that Eleanor has trailed off mid-lecture. She and Zephyr are both instantly on high alert--either something is wrong with Eleanor, or something is wrong elesehwere.
They're both instantly alert at Eleanor's cry of 'No!' 'We have to sop it.' "Stop what?"
Her blood runs cold as she hears the name Xander. She shivers, despite herself. In the next moment she's standing up and throwing her jacket on. "Let's go."
A flash of light brings them to the cathedral.
Hannah chases after Eleanor into the cathedral, spewing gouts of flame to drive off any vines or plants trying to reach for them as they make their way in. She skids to a stop next to Eleanor, dressed in her normal denim jacket and jeans. She draws in a sharp breath as she sees the blood, sees the unconscious knights.
Zephyr swoops in overhead, rapidly rising up to take a high view of the situation.
Her face is grim as she stares the two Fangs down. That claw... "You said you were done with killin'. One more and everythin' would be over. What did you do?" She has a crest graph drawn, but hasn't started channeling any magic into it yet.
GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Xander Lovell with B and J M686! GS: Billy Lee Black has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
EARLIER
"...Eleanor?" Ida's face goes pale. She turns to Hannah, swallows, and reaches out to place a grounding hand on Eleanor's shoulder. "Eleanor, are you--"
'No!'
Ida jerks back, a cry of shock leaving her lips. Almost immediately, a big man in a butler's uniform is in the doorway, the very picture of concern. "Miss Klein?" says Albrecht, and from his expression, Ida knows he's weighing his options. "Is something wrong?"
'Xander. Xander Lowell. We have to stop him.'
Ida's heart falls into her stomach. "We have to go," she says, once the moment of shock fades, replaced by certainty. "Tell Mother and Father we'll be back."
She runs upstairs to her ARM locker, and returns with her pistols. One flash of sorcery later, they're miles away, in St. Heim.
NOW
Ida runs. Physically, she is with Eleanor and the others, but part of her is back in the past, when Solaris decided the Ethos were more trouble than they were worth. When Ida bore witness to the murder of her mother's colleagues. It's why there's terror in her eyes as she breaches the door and sees Xander holding the Temple Knight. "DROP THEM!" Ida screams, and in a heartbeat, Devil's Due is in her hand, and aimed at Xander's head.
Riley's jubilance and embrace make her lips tic; a sharp, manic little laugh leaves her throat.
Shots ring out. Billy, Ida realizes. Part of her hopes it'll stick this time.
GS: Xander Lovell solidly guards Billy Lee Black's B and J M686 for 51 hit points! GS: Quick applied to Billy Lee Black!
<Pose Tracker> Yulie Ahtreide has posed.
Redi had invited Yulie and Hicalu to tag along in her work, and Yulie had happily agreed. It was a chance to go sightseeing, and it had been a while since she last visited the Grand Cathedral. Her faith had been... tested... but she's still a believer. She wants to see it.
...Which is why a tragedy that when she finally sets eyes on it again, it's engulfed in thorns.
She meets Redi's eyes.
"...Right." Yulie agrees. Hicalu is not quite so thrilled, so she offers him a glance. "...It's okay. Stay close to me, alright?"
She follows after Redi, drawing her chakrams from her skirt to cut through any of the dark plants that impede their progress. They make their way through the doors - in time to see a knight tossed aside, and two people embracing. The culprit, or culprits... and what's more, Redi seems familiar, and so does Hicalu. Yulie looks their way. Ordinarily, in a clean-cut situation like this, Yulie would be inclined to act on her first impulses... but she holds back, for now.
"You know them, Redi...?" Yulie asks, looking toward Riley and Xander. "You two... what's going on here?"
She doesn't attack - no, instead she spots another familiar face, moving toward the fallen knight.
"Rue!" Yulie calls out to Ruzhen, hurrying over to her. She kneels down, drawing out a Crest. She's a Paladienne - a healer by nature. She casts her spell. The knight is only unconscious, by his attacker's mercy - and with any luck, this will be the extent of his wounds today. She straightens back up, looking toward Hicalu.
"He'll live." Yulie assures, then looks back toward Riley and Xander. "But..."
...She doesn't know what happens next - but that much hinges on them.
<Pose Tracker> Shige Kiwako has posed.
Shige Kiwako is doing what she always does, letting her curiosity get the better of her. Walking the street, fingers looped through her lantern hook. The death shaman doing the rounds, observing. On the prowl even.
It means the commotion gets her attention. There's a moment with her head canted, ears picking out the sounds. She's trying to figure out if they're alive or not. Changes how she approaches the stiuation really.
As she nears the cathedral, she picks up her pace, there are familiar voices and she's on the run now. Wearing something more conventional than her usual bartender's stylings even! Still mostly in muted colors admittedly..
Though as she nears the door, one of her everpresent shades briefly manifests. Eyes visible in the shadows, arm out to stop her. Stepping forward before vanishing again. She lifts her lantern to get a good look at the situation. In more ways than one.
"What the f-" is barely audible before she's cut off again by a gunshot. She takes up a position, ready for the worst.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
There was something amiss in the world. There is somewhere she ought to be that isn't here. Up rises that nagging sense from the depths once more and here Avril had frozen but a moment in her seat at Ida's. Her gaze grows a touch unfocused, as if she were instead a million miles away.
Eleanor had cried out mere moments later, her revelation a far clearer picture of what precisely is happening/was about to happen and the stakes it involved. It brings Avril to her senses, and she rises from her seat, suddenly animated once again. "Dean, we must-- oh, but Rebecca--" The misgiving that crosses her face is fleeting. Avril shakes her head. "...We must go on without her."
Rebecca is a dear friend, and Avril would feel better for her at her side. But time is of the essence and now is not the moment for sentimentality. "Eleanor, if you are ready?"
With a flash of light, they cross space, appearing with a sudden jolt in St. Heim. Avril doesn't walk, she runs, her focus zeroed in on that abomination that seems to emanate from the heart of the holy city, the cathedral itself.
"Xander, Riley--"
Her gaze falls on the claw that Xander has gained. For a moment Avril is utterly silent, her chest rising and falling as she takes it in, perhaps considering its meaning.
Then in her hand is a blade.
"I am sorry," she tells the both of them. She knows they only want to live. She throws one hand forward, a rising tide of icy shards tearing across the desecrated cathedral for Xander.
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Xander Lovell with Surge Glaciaire! GS: Avril Vent Fleur has gained 1 Combo! GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action. GS: Riley Arwell used Defend! He takes Avril Vent Fleur's Surge Glaciaire attack on Xander Lovell on himself!
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Riley has the decency to redden with embarrassment as the Drifters begin to assemble, and the accusing questions begin to fly. (He broke his promise that they would stop killing... he wasted Eleanor's gift...! He has been CAUGHT by HIS NEW FRIEND REDI in the midst of EVIL ACTIONS that he... well... technically didn't do but clearly condones, why is the world so cruel...)
And all right, yes, he can see why there is a lot of concern! The sky is black and terrifying like the world's about to end or something. Riley's thorns are gone, which means at least one person is dead... But surely they don't think the Fangs are ACTUALLY going to do all of that Day of Darkness stuff, right? Well, maybe the strangers do, but Eleanor knows them better, right?? Right?? Maybe she's dissappointed enough in them now to think otherwise...
"Yes, yes, we broke my promise, and I'm sorry! But you guys don't actually think we're going to destroy the world, right?? It's just a bluff to extend our mission. Everything's spooky because the bluff worked! That's all! Come on, Xander, let's go before they start shooting."
BANG. BANG. They started shooting...
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
The Drifters pour in. They always do. Some he recognizes, some he doesn't. Ida asks Xander to drop the knight, and Xander does not provide a quip as he does. Most of them wonder what he's doing. Even Riley has the wrong idea. Then Billy asks what he's doing with bullets.
Xander brings up his new cursed limb, catching the bullets into his flesh. He hisses with the pain, but does not flinch, even as he squeezes out the bullets to let them clatter onto the ground. For a brief moment, he locks eyes with the priest. There is a rage there, barely contained, that Xander has to forcibly slam down.
Eleanor, however, knows what he's doing and pleads with him to stop.
"It was always too late," he tells her. "...I don't know why it had to go this far. I don't know why it isn't far enough. But it will keep going until it is."
He lets out a long breath, straightening upright to look to the others. Normally, Xander hates to go on and on about his reasoning. Who cares? He's fighting and killing and they're fighting and defending. That's all it needs to be. But there's a strange tranquility washing over him.
"It's no bluff, Riley. I'm not giving you something as meager as three more years. There is no cure from alchemy I could ever give you. There is no secret miracle in Zeboim, or any other ruin we dove into. The Guardians can't save us. Granas can't save us. If we've been abandoned by the gods, then... I'll take charge of our fate."
Xander's eye is dark with conviction.
"If it's by Valmar's will that we die, then I will become that will. If there's no way for you to survive in this world, then I'll devour it and replace it with one you can belong in myself!"
Surely, Granas will send His champions. Surely. Xander snaps his attention to the others.
"...You all have your own things to protect. I don't begrudge that. But..."
Plant flesh erupts from Xander's left side, and boney scales spread over his right to join his new Clawed hand. With a throbbing shudder, a blade rips from his forearm, writhing out and refolding against him as a mantis-like limb, bladed with a fang. The drapery of the robes he snuck in with still billow behind him, tattered by strife and transformation alike.
"...You'll have to fight as hard for it as I'm going to fight for him."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH-vojdF040
Plant flesh erupts from Xander's left side, and boney scales spread over his right to join his new Clawed hand. With a throbbing shudder, a blade rips from his forearm, writhing out and refolding against him as a mantis-like limb, bladed with a fang. The drapery of the robes he snuck in with still billow behind him, tattered by strife and transformation alike.
"And if you only need to condemn two people to death for it..." A smile crosses his face, bitter, as he extends his claw and the room begins to tremble as cursed plants rise from the earth. "...Why, that's quite the bargain."
Carnivorous blossoms rise under Avril, Dean, Ida, Hannah, and Ruth, threatening to rise up and snap them in their jaws. Withered looking thorns rise around Shige and Ruzhen, trying to coil around them, venom on their thorns. Then Xander leaps for the rest of the group -- Redi, Yulie, Hicalu, Billy, and Eleanor -- rushing in a frenzy of claw strikes and slicing and stabbing with the Fanged limb. His movements are quick and brutal, dizzying and hard to follow -- and some of his attacks may not be a straightforward as they first seem.
Surely. Surely Granas has sent His champions in this dark hour.
"And I know for a fact..." He looks over Ruth, over Billy, pauses over Yulie questioningly before continuing his assault. "...Granas didn't send a single one of you! Because Granas isn't doing anything at all!"
Avril's ice launches for him on his blind side. Xander does not seem to see it coming.
DC: You switch forms to Dawn of Darkness! DC: Xander Lovell switches forms to Dawn of Darkness! GS: Xander Lovell used Force Action: Mystic on Riley Arwell! FP up! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Redi Hayworth with Tooth and Claw! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Yulie Ahtreide with Tooth and Claw! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 1 Combo! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Hicalu Wilwisp with Tooth and Claw! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Billy Lee Black with Tooth and Claw! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Eleanor Klein with Tooth and Claw! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 1 Combo! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Dionaea! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Dean Stark with Dionaea! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ruth Pauling with Dionaea! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Dionaea! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Hannah Curie with Dionaea! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Shige Kiwako with Decay! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 1 Combo! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Li Ruzhen with Decay! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 1 Combo! GS: Xander Lovell has completed his action. GS: Access! Xander Lovell takes 131 damage! GS: CRITICAL! Gamble: Moderate! Li Ruzhen takes a solid hit from Xander Lovell's Decay for 86 hit points! GS: Misery inflicts a random effect! Cripple, Hex, and Interrupt applied to Li Ruzhen! GS: Quick, Quick, and Shield applied to Xander Lovell! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Xander Lovell's attack becomes clear! GS: Eleanor Klein takes a solid hit from Xander Lovell's Rest for 69 hit points! GS: Drowsy and Interrupt applied to Eleanor Klein! GS: Shield applied to Xander Lovell! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated! GS: Eleanor Klein has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt! GS: Redi Hayworth suffers a terrible blow from Xander Lovell's Tooth and Claw for 153 hit points! GS: Yulie Ahtreide solidly guards Xander Lovell's Tooth and Claw for 65 hit points! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated! GS: Ruth Pauling suffers a terrible blow from Xander Lovell's Dionaea for 156 hit points! GS: Avril Vent Fleur takes a glancing hit from Xander Lovell's Dionaea for 53 hit points! GS: Quick applied to Xander Lovell! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated! GS: CRITICAL! Ida Everstead-Rey partially evades Xander Lovell's Dionaea for 122 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Hannah Curie suffers a terrible blow from Xander Lovell's Dionaea for 180 hit points! GS: Quick and Shield applied to Xander Lovell! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp suffers a terrible blow from Xander Lovell's Tooth and Claw for 155 hit points! GS: Dean Stark suffers a terrible blow from Xander Lovell's Dionaea for 158 hit points! GS: Gamble: Highest! Shige Kiwako takes a glancing hit from Xander Lovell's Decay for 45 hit points! GS: Misery inflicts a random effect! Break, Hex, and Interrupt applied to Shige Kiwako! GS: Shield applied to Xander Lovell! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated! GS: Riley Arwell solidly guards Avril Vent Fleur's Surge Glaciaire for 49 hit points! GS: Entangle applied to Riley Arwell! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Sufferer activated! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Xander Lovell's attack becomes clear! GS: Billy Lee Black solidly guards Xander Lovell's Quell for 72 hit points! GS: Dispel! Quick removed! GS: Quick and Shield applied to Xander Lovell!
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
"Xander!" The shots fly, and Xander ends up taking them into his Claw. Riley hopes that the strange new scales offer some protection, but it still sounds like it hurt. He releases him from the embrace so they can move, and gives his shoulder a tug, urging him again to get moving. Meanwhile, he scans the crowd for people he feels like he needs to explain himself to.
"Redi, I'm sorry you had to find out in the middle of a... a thing like this, but... we're actually the ones who're evil! Sorry! We can still be friends if you want!"
His gaze turns to Eleanor, then darts away with guilt. "I'm sorry I didn't put the potion to good use. I couldn't..." He sure talked a good game like he was ready to retire from his life of evil. And she must have seen how giddily he accepted the ... extension. But... surely she must understand how, given the choice, he would want to keep going... she said she understood... "Anybody else need an apology? Apologies all around! Hannah..." Broke a promise to her too. "Dean..." Probably expected them to try harder to escape Valmar's grip. "Avril... shit!" She's apologizing to them but that's because she's sending ice blades across the room at Xander from an angle that Xander isn't watching. Riley had only just let go of him, and covers him again with his body, summoning what vines he can to serve as a shield for them both. Some embed into the greenery, while others slice into his back and the side of his arm. He gives a sharp inhale.
Xander faces the Drifters, and Riley, trying to make himself understood.
It's no bluff.
Riley looks back at him with increasing astonishment and disbelief as he goes on. A sort of panicked smile creeps onto his face, his face turning redder than red, and he lets out a nervous laugh. "Xander. That's so... ... oh my god." He looks back at the Drifters, flustered. "Xander, that's wonderful, that... I love that you want to do that for me. ... obviously we can't, though. Right?" More nervous laughter, he looks back at the others with a big, uneasy smile. "He doesn't really mean any of that!! We're going to leave right now and have a talk about this, ha ha ha! Xander, put away the mantis arm and come on--!!"
<Pose Tracker> Redi Hayworth has posed.
"Th-that's a heck of a thing to leave out, Riley!" Redi stammers at him. "It kind of changes the context of, you know, a lot of what we were talking about! About curses! And things!"
She blows some air out from between her teeth, with frustration.
Redi does take a step forward because she hears Hicalu coming. A step, just to be sure he doesn't run into her back. She glances back at him, and she hesitates. "Maybe... maybe I got a little carried away," she says, her voice kept quiet.
She recognizes Ruzhen -- there's a flash of gratitude, to hear her call for an evacuation -- and then she looks at Yulie. "Y--Yeah. They were two nice people I talked to in Meria. Riley wrote me a letter, and..."
She shakes her head. And something went horribly wrong. She immediately flinches at the gunfire -- she still isn't used to that -- and then she looks at Yulie as she hurries to the fallen man and Ruzhen.
She looks back at Xander, eyes widening as she sees his terrible transformation. It looks painful, Redi thinks dimly; and then he's leaping for them. She swings up her quarterstaff, just catching the claw, but it pushes past and hits her shoulder.
Blood runs down her arm, where the sleeve tore. "Hicalu, get back!" Redi calls out, before her eyes snap towards Yulie. "Yulie, b-be careful! I didn't know this was the curse that Riley was talking about!"
Then, she spins her staff around. Redi swings it up in a wide arc -- leaping as she does -- and then cracks it down for Xander's neck, near where the vines meet scales. Her blue eyes are wide. She lands in front of him for just a moment.
"Don't do this, Xander!" she says. "Do--do you really think this is what Riley wants!? For you to do this to yourself? To other people? Please, if--if you won't think of yourself, of all of the people you'll hurt... think of what it could do to him!"
Her blue eyes meet Xander's. "Just--just listen to him! He says he wants to leave! To not do this!"
GS: Redi Hayworth has attacked Xander Lovell with Catapult Crash! GS: Redi Hayworth has gained 2 Combo! GS: Redi Hayworth's stances have changed to Avenger! GS: Redi Hayworth gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Redi Hayworth has completed her action. <Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
Evil is here, scratching and raking away. It is to be released. And that awful, profane portent...
Billy has questions. That's fair. She might answer... but she doesn't think she'll have to. She knows Ruth is here. SHe knows Avril, too, saw something. And there are others, some who she knows, some who she doesn't, including--
Avril strikes. Eleanor probably should have. How many lives has her soft heart cost?
Ruzhen and Yulie are taking care of a fallen knight. Eleanor's eyes stay on the Fangs. And at Riley's question, Eleanor gives him a steely look. "...I believe you don't want to destroy the world, Riley."
But that's not the same as believing he won't.
Especially because... Xander says it. It was always too late.
"Xander," Eleanor says, pained to agony in watching him become what he has become. "...I..."
It's no bluff, he says. He will take charge of their fate. And so, with the finality of a tomb door slamming shut, Eleanor whispers, "I understand."
Eleanor is hit by a frenzy of strikes--and she tries to bring to bear Light against his darkness, her hand surging with power--but before she can bring it to bear, he slashes across her palm, and causes her to cry out holding it back to herself, with blood coming away.
"There is no 'only' two lives, Xander. You know that." She blinks away her tears. How many lives has her soft heart cost, now?
"Perhaps Granas is not here. ...But I serve the power that shapes the world, and I am here."
"I am the Sage of Light. And I will bring this darkness to an end." A pause. "...I promised Riley."
She is so, so tired. Is it the magic of his claw? Is it the rest of his horrid transformation?
"O Light of the Golden Realm!" Eleanor calls, not upon a Crest, but upon the raw power of the Ley, even if the color of Wing and Geo is still faintly visible at her hand. "Turn back time, that evil be undone!"
Her wound heals immediately. Her head is clearer, immediately, the poison gone.
"I'm sorry," she says. "But I can't let my feelings get in the way any longer."
"Riley," Eleanor says, still pained. "It's over. I'm putting an end to it here. This has gone as far as I can allow."
She wishes she could still plead with them, like Redi. But she can't. How many lives?
"Xander, I won't let you do this!"
GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Shige Kiwako with Reversion! GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Eleanor Klein with Reversion! GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Li Ruzhen with Reversion! GS: Eleanor Klein has gained 1 Combo! GS: Interrupt expired! GS: Eleanor Klein has completed her action. GS: Eleanor Klein accepts Eleanor Klein's Reversion for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Drowsy removed! GS: Lock state applied to Eleanor Klein! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Li Ruzhen accepts Eleanor Klein's Reversion for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Hex removed! GS: Lock state applied to Li Ruzhen! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! <Pose Tracker> Li Ruzhen has posed.
"Yulie! Am I glad you're here," Ruzhen says between laborious breathes, because an armored person is actually fairly heavy to move under her own accord. She slacks and lets the Paladienne take over, though, nodding in turn as she looks back towards the scene, knowing better to not take her eyes off off it.
"He's going to be okay. I'd go while the going is good, sir," Ruzhen tries to encourage Hicalu, taking a step forward to try to get the fluffy Fennec man to evacuate the premises.
An exchange is happening between some of the Drifters -- who know them -- and Riley. A promise...? Are they bluffing? To what end--
Xander speaks of a curse that they can't escape. Something no force on Filgaia or Lunar can change. It's not something that she quite understands, but she understands well that senes of desperation and the conviction that comes of such desperation, reflected in Xander's eye.
The transformation is as horrific as it is impressive, as plant flesh erupts from him, scales and a mantis-like limb reforged where there was once limb.
The thorns snarl up around her legs, a venom sinking into her as it cuts through the fabric of her pant leg. "Ggh...!" She kicks and yanks away, to little avail.
"I'm not gonna even pretend to know what the two of you're going through," Ruzhen admits. "But I get how raw a deal the world puts out, making you do figure eights... what's the up-and-down with Granas when you and I can take the look on what's in front of us? You've got more gumption than I do, even. I only look for solutions to my problems at the bottom of a bottle. But..."
Ruzhen glances to Yulie. To Billy. To Ida. To Eleanor. To Ruth, too. She's not forgotten.
"I wager you have the right of it. Xander. They came here of their own will, these folks who do quite a bit of all right in this world. That's faith enough for me."
But Riley covers for Xander, and his reaction... ...
"Riley... is it? Sorry, I'm working on figuring your names out, but I gotta say... you have to listen to your man. He means everything -- you, the world, what he's doing... I get that you're probably scared witless right now -- heck, I am -- but you can't paper it over like he isn't putting all his chips on the line for you."
Her eyes narrow.
"Walk with him into the darkness, Riley. Or take a stand if you feel that remorse from how you feel about letting these folks down. But I can't stand to see this happening to either of you."
Her words are bold, but that's because the hypocritical talk the loudest about that which exposes themselves. Eleanor's light washes over her, and though she feels whatever jolt erupt from her limbs, she wills for her body to cooperate -- nodding at Eleanor in turn.
The .38 is levelled -- and she squints as she aims for Xander. At the last moment, though, she raises her arm and fires--
BANG
--for the stained-glass window, to shatter it and let the light of the Silver Star shine through, and coincidentally send fragments cascading across the church--
BANG BANG
--two more bullets erupt from the gunsmoke ARM, reflected on the shards of the stained-glass window, ricocheting off off each piece to try to sink into a shoulder of Xander's, in the gap where his human side ends and the Claw of Valmar begins, to try to constrict some flow into the horrible appendage.
They're low calibre bullets that won't do much damage, but Ruzhen's banking on something softer than the mantis claw to bother him...
GS: Li Ruzhen has attacked Xander Lovell with Arriere-Pensees! GS: Li Ruzhen has gained 1 Combo! GS: Li Ruzhen has launched an attack Link! GS: Interrupt expired! GS: Li Ruzhen has attacked Xander Lovell with Fait Accompli! GS: Li Ruzhen has gained 1 Combo! GS: Li Ruzhen has completed her action. GS: Gamble: Very High! Xander Lovell solidly guards Redi Hayworth's Catapult Crash for 79 hit points! GS: Hyper and Mighty applied to Redi Hayworth! GS: FP up! Power Burst activated! GS: Xander Lovell partially guards Li Ruzhen's Arriere-Pensees for 0 hit points! GS: Shieldbreak and Weaken blocked! GS: Xander Lovell solidly guards Li Ruzhen's Fait Accompli for 0 hit points! GS: Infect! Debuff durations extended!! GS: Break, Hex, and Slow blocked!
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
"Y--you're gonna b-b--become--"
A village burned to cinders,
"no," Hicalu says, staggering back a step. His ears pin to his head, and even though Ruzhen tries to tell Hicalu it's a good time to go, he apparently can't hear her. Neither can he hear Redi telling him to be careful, apparently -- because Xander comes to them in a flurry of claw strikes, and Hicalu SHRIEKS, falling back with a sound of tearing cloth and something else.
Don't ask what the damp feeling across his chest is. Don't look down. Don't think about it. Don't --
"No--!" Hicalu shrieks, as he tucks himself into a little ball, on the ground, tail curling around to hide his knees as his hands guard his face.
"Don't -- don't call him here--!"
GS: Hicalu Wilwisp has attacked Hicalu Wilwisp with NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE!! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp has completed his action. GS: Hicalu Wilwisp accepts Hicalu Wilwisp's NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE! for 0 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Ruth is deaf in one ear, and even that is flooded with the raw emotion of terror and fury throughout the Cathedral. Xander's further transformation elicits a part of revulsion in her that no amount of bloodshed that many, many years of combat can ever fully deaden, as Xander's love is made his greatest compass in navigating a place no soul should tread.
"...Sister Ruth..." The Songstress, struggling with the enormity of all this, is rooted in her place as withered thorns start to rise.
An alarming alacrity from Ruth as she drags the bayoent blade of her rifle right out from where it was planted with strength she physically cannot possess any more with the condition of her left shoulder, a scream of something just outside of the edge of 'acceptably passing for person' as she rams them out from the snapping jaws of the blossoms that ensnare her.
'And I know for a fact... Granas didn't send a single one of you!'
Ruth, slightly in shock from the sharp carnivorous maws digging into her, lets out a breath. Frightful screams from someone she doesn't know, yet seemed so hopeful - even desperate - a lapsed former Etone might come to Granas' Light in these awful, uncertain times even before accounting for the Darkness that infests and attacks the heart of the Granas faith itself.
'Because Granas isn't doing anything at all!'
Ruth's eyes glaze over at Billy. Billy is not the Etone she answered to - he's far too young for that. In fact, he looked nothing like him at all, but she can never unhear his insistence as to why she needed to keep fighting.
All minor variations of 'this is all you have to offer for the Light.'
"...Granas," Ruth's head bows, "didn't stop me either." The carnivorous blossom clamps down.
In a burst of blackish-purple miasma, a veritable explosion blunted by the presence of a different powerful spiritual corruption clamping down on her, bisects the maw open as a familiar (to most) gargoyle-shaped Hellion with only one wing announces themselves with a shrieking hiss of overflowing emotion.
The Songstress' eyes widen in horror - unclear if she is capable of sight on that level, but can see clearly the way Ruth just broke out of there is not normal.
Malevolence rises from Ruth's form as her warped self-image tries to overtake the recent grievous injuries. Her single wing stretches out in full threat posture. What stands here is not a creature of Light, suffused with and holding onto a dangerous, monstrous existence all unto its own as the reddened darkness-light 'shines' upon her from a stained stained-glass window (which shatters soon after).
Her own rain - indoors - starts to fall, tiny little needles of sadness against the strewn Valmar-conjured plants. She catches some of the glances her way, as her tail helps keep a steady grip on the rifle now in her hands. Her hands falter, for a moment. The discordance of her heart will not let her let go, that tail nudging it harder into her palms as the rain picks up strength.
"Riley." Ruth's voice is soft, almost too soft to be heard over the gathering rain. "I remember when someone thought there was more to a heartless monster who was only ever good for killing."
She holds her posture as the rain of her Domain casts its offensive against Xander and much of the surrounding thorny plants.
GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Xander Lovell with Inconsolable Heavens! GS: Ruth Pauling enters a Counter stance! GS: Ruth Pauling has gained 2 Combo! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
That claw. That Claw. Ida's hand starts to shake as she sees it, recognizes it for what it must be. "You," she says, as Xander expels the bullets from his body. "You--how--how did you--" Her fingers tighten around her ARM's grip as she realizes she's trembling, and it's ruining her aim--as if mere bullets could kill Xander now.
"One piece of Valmar wasn't enough, was it?" Ida's voice wavers, as much from rage as from fear. "You needed more. You had to..." To save himself. To save the man he loves above all else. All for the cost of two worlds, and all life upon them.
"RILEY, NO!" Ida's focus breaks. She reaches out with her free hand, as if she could somehow pull Riley out of the way of Avril's ice with will alone. Even now, she--
She can't--
Cursed blooms break through the marble floor. Ida is caught flat-footed; the plants' thorns dig into her calves, drawing blood and drinking deep.
And as Riley says, Granas isn't here. His words have lodged in Ida's heart as surely as those horrid spines have lodged in her flesh. "GET OUT!" she screams over her shoulder, to the Temple Knights.
Granas isn't here, she reminds herself. But she is. Eleanor is. Billy is. So many of them are here. And God's light is in every single one of them. Ida takes a step forward; the force of it rips the tendrils from the ground, even as their thorns dig deeper. Silvery flesh flows across her body, hardening into bright, solid exoskeleton, all deep blue, bright gold, and void-black.
Ida takes a second step, rips the rest of the tendrils free, plants a boot on the floor hard enough to chip the marble. In a slow, very pointed motion, she presses Devil's Due into the small of her back, where it sinks into the spot where its holster should go.
"You've unleashed something horrible," Ida says, "and I'm terrified. But you--you're not the only monster here."
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Third Method - Shaping the Battle-Forged Shell! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 5 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey's stances have changed to ! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Ida Everstead-Rey accepts Ida Everstead-Rey's Third Method - Shaping the Battle-Forged Shell for 0 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Cover applied to Ida Everstead-Rey!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
"Oh--you're right," Dean utters when Avril mentions Rebecca. She's out picking something up--if they leave now, especially if they teleport, they'll just ditch her. Fortunately, just as doubt sets in on *him*, conviction sets in on *Avril*. "...All right," he says, giving her a firm nod.
And so they and Ida and Hannah all go with Eleanor to the place of her vision. Dean might hold off on attacking Xander and Riley immediately, but Avril isn't so merciful, and she's not the only one. Dean winces as she casts her ice and Billy opens fire, but--I'm sorry really is about the only thing any of them can say at this point.
Riley makes his excuses for both of them. Dean gives him a long, unhappy look. It doesn't get any better when Xander contradicts him, as the two of them do for each other basically all the time, Dean has come to realize. And what *Xander* has to say is...
"That isn't a bargain, Xander. It's no bargain at all," Dean says quietly. He extends his hands; Twin Fenrir flash into them in a burst of light. He grimaces again as he sees the look on Riley's face, the utter shock, the way he tries to convince all of them--convince *himself*--that he doesn't mean it. "I think he *does* mean it, Riley," he murmurs. "I think you're the only one who doesn't see that."
He's not unsympathetic either--not even when that snapping rise of the carnivorous blossom beneath him chomps onto one leg with voracious fury. He shouts in pain, but in response, he wheels his combat rods around as they superheat in an instant and cooks it off. He staggers away and forward, favoring his uninjured leg. His grimace isn't just because of the pain.
To Xander, he raises his voice: "I really hate that it's come to this--maybe as much as you do. I really wish we could've found another way. I know I let you down, too--I tried to help, but it wasn't enough. But I know you love Riley with everything you've got. So... I'm not gonna insult your love by holding back anymore."
He shoots Riley an apologetic look, even though he sees those lack of thorns and knows what Riley must have just done himself. He also sees those icicles fly in for Xander, only for Riley to take the blow. Riley offers his own apologies, as much as he needs, but...
"I'm sorry too, Riley. And I'm sorry, Xander. I know you only want to live on together. But I just can't let this happen!!" Leaning on his good leg, Dean launches himself forward and swings his combat rods around to land a blisteringly hot blow on--Xander? On Riley? It's Xander he aims for, but Dean's prepared for Riley to intercept, just as he'd be prepared for Xander to intercept if he'd aimed for Riley.
Either way, if those rods land, they might leave behind some nasty burns.
GS: Dean Stark spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Dean Stark has attacked Xander Lovell with Burning Magazine! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
Well. That's...AN explanation.
The leather of Billy's holsters creak as he slots his weapons back home, eyes drifting up to Xander as the man with the claw explains himself. The man at his side - a lover, maybe - desperately clings to straws..but this Xander's crimes become too clear too soon. "I see," Billy says.
He slips his gun back out of the holster as he breaks into a charge. The clash with Xander is brief; he rams his pistol forward to fire into his face, driving the counterattack wide enough that Billy's Etone protections can deflect the rest of the blow. Billy hits the rug running up the center of the room hard, huffing a breath as he feels his side ache from the contact. "...for what little it's worth," Billy says, "I've seen a good few monsters who know what's become of them." Wels...God. An ocean of mutant bodies...
He stands up, shaking off the vision and turns back, hem low around his ankles, heavy with purpose and equipment. His eyes flick to Ruth...they've fought together before. More than once. He's not shocked anymore by the ravenous malevolence that pulses from her. ...perhaps he has ignored too many of his duties, he wonders.
He starts to approach again, slow and methodical. "I've heard this before. It's all fake...lies. Granas, a Solaris illusion. Even if no such thing as Granas ever shone on this planet, that hardly matters now. It never mattered if God would save us! Granas' message was always the same! First...!"
He thrusts both hands out and his two ether guns slide out of his sleeves into his hands, barrels pressed against each other. At the union point, a shimmering darkness forms, which Billy fires downrange at Xander, tearing up tilework as it flies. "...we save each other!"
GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Xander Lovell with Hell Blast! GS: Billy Lee Black has gained 3 Combo! GS: Billy Lee Black's stances have changed to Sage! GS: Billy Lee Black has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
Her spell lances across the room, but it is not Xander that it catches. Shock flutters across Avril's expression in that instant. Would it have been better, if she had waited? Perhaps she could have given them that change to explain themselves. Perhaps her spell wouldn't have struck Riley. But it has long been Avril's nature to act decisively, a trait that was likely true of the woman she used to be. Conviction affords no compromise, and conviction...
...Is precisely what Xander displays, now.
Her expression is hardened again, ice spreading to swallow that false spring. "I understand," she tells Xander. "There are those whom I would travel to the ends of the world to save, if it were necessary. I understand the feeling that drives you now." There is no other option for the two of them, no other world in which they can live: the curse weighs heavy upon them and will cannot be shrugged aside. How cruel a god must Valmar be...
"Yet, I cannot permit you to do this. What you attempt will surely endanger those I would protect and the rest of Filgaia both. If we have no choice but to fight," she says, glancing now at Dean as if to read his own heart regarding the matter at hand, "then I shall face you."
The transformation takes him. Avril lifts her blade as if anticipation of an attack, only to see with one downward glance that the threat comes from below. "Lucadia...!" Here there be monsters; she invokes her artificial Medium and leaps high into the air as the edges of the plant's ragged maw gash at her legs.
It's quite a bargain. The safety of the world, for only two people's lives. Avril seems to hang in the air for a moment as she reaches the top of her arc, her head turning towards the tableau below. Perhaps she is taking in the exchange between Xander and Riley. Or perhaps instead, she is seeking her own opening. Her weapon's blade disappears, and as she begins to fall, Avril pulls Absolute Zero's trigger.
Light erupts in a long streaming beam of plasma, lashed out in a long arc towards Xander.
"He is intent on it, Riley," she says, landing neatly on her feet. "There is no denying his conviction. ...If you wish him to leave this place with you now, is your desire for that as strong as his own?"
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Xander Lovell with Spiral Edge! GS: Avril Vent Fleur has gained 2 Combo! GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action. GS: Riley Arwell used Defend! He takes Dean Stark's Burning Magazine attack on Xander Lovell on himself GS: Shige Kiwako accepts Eleanor Klein's Reversion for 0 hit points! GS: Restore! Hex removed! GS: Lock state applied to Shige Kiwako! GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
Riley is offering apologies for broken promises, and if anything, Hannah looks less inclined to accept one than their last confrontation. "Apologies ain't gonna fix this, Riley," she says with a flat glare."
Riley says Xander made some sort of bluff--except Xander assures them it is anything but. That he'll devour the world and remake it into something that will let Riley live. And then...
The claw forebodes dark things indeed, especially as Xander just catches the bullets flung his way and then drops them like nothing happened. But it's not just the clawed arm, no...
That blade erupting out of Xander's arm is liable to be the source of a few restless nights of sleep sometime in the future.
She's recoiling from the transformation when bloosoms erupt under her, and they catch her unawares, latching briefly onto her leg before she channels magic into her crest graph. It burns a bright red and she inhales sharply and then, in an act that may prove very worrying to a number of Drifters (and possibly antagonists) that haven't seen her do it before, she breathes flame down at her leg, engulfing it in flame and incinerating the blossom to free herself.
The denim of her jeans seems perfectly fine. The charred remains of the blossom quickly crumble as she pulls her leg back.
She can hear the heartbreak in Eleanor's voice, and she feels for her friend. (There is no love lost for the Fangs, however. Even if Xander did offer her something to help.) "Givin' in to Valmar ain't gonna fix anythin', Riley. Can the two of you really live with the world on your consciences? With two worlds on your consciences?"
Of course, it's not like she's one to talk about giving in to your afflictions. She keeps tapping into her own corrupted magic every time a fight breaks out. She could stop using her magic altogether, but who knows what might happen eventually if it goes untreated.
Her aura grows strained (which, admittedly, might be hard to catch with all of the dark magic of Valmar being flung around at this moment), as she pulls out a crest graph glowing a bright, frosty blue. With her leg freed, she moves in the general direction of the knights to stand between them and Xander. "I'll cover you, but y'all gotta move!" Her hand goes up, and she slams the crest onto the ground.
A wave of ice erupts from the crest graph--sharp, gnarled crystals of ice spread along the floor in a line heded directly for Xander. Little tendrils of it drift off of the line to the sides as she fights to keep it directed, but once it reaches its target it will attempt to grow and spread and ensnare any part of Xander it can to slow him down.
Zephyr is swooping down from above to chirp at the knights. He's trying to rally them and draw their attention towards the exit to hopefully give them the idea to leave.
GS: Hannah Curie has attacked Xander Lovell with Winter's Grasp! GS: Hannah Curie has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Yulie Ahtreide has posed.
Redi met them in Meria... they were nice. Yulie frowns.
"...I'm sorry. This must be rough." She murmurs. To find out like this... For now, she nods to Ruzhen.
"I'm glad you're here, too... but I didn't expect things to be like this." Yulie admits. She does what she can for the knight - but soon, she's forced to fend for herself as Xander goes on the defensive. Limbs lash out brutally and Yulie brings her chakrams up to protect herself, using them to divert the attacks. She can only do so much - some of them glance off, Yulie wincing as his strikes land an impact. Her barrier flickers to life just briefly with each hit.
"Granas didn't send me, no... but I'm here to help all the same." Yulie replies. She stumbles back as his attention turns elsewhere, nodding to Redi as she does.
"R-Right." She replies, she looks toward Hicalu, then. "...It's alright. I'll cover you - get out while you can, okay?"
She looks back toward Xander and Riley, then.
"...I'm sorry. That things ended up like this for you. I wish you could both be happy... but Valmar is Evil - there is no place for anything else in a world built by his influence. The future you hope for... it's impossible." She shakes her head. She looks toward Billy. ...She's glad he's here too. She nods quietly to herself, agreeing with his words, and then casts both her hands outward.
A ball of light begins to form between her hands, power building - and then it parts as if split in two by a sword, restricting light erupting outward toward Xander!
GS: Yulie Ahtreide has attacked Xander Lovell with Retreat Wave! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has completed her action. GS: Xander Lovell partially guards Ruth Pauling's Inconsolable Heavens for 102 hit points! GS: Cover applied to Ruth Pauling! GS: Xander Lovell solidly guards Hannah Curie's Winter's Grasp for 29 hit points! GS: Slow applied to Xander Lovell! GS: Entangle blocked! GS: Xander Lovell solidly guards Billy Lee Black's Hell Blast for 57 hit points! GS: Cover and Quick applied to Billy Lee Black! GS: Xander Lovell solidly guards Avril Vent Fleur's Spiral Edge for 64 hit points! GS: Delay blocked! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated! GS: Xander Lovell solidly guards Yulie Ahtreide's Retreat Wave for 38 hit points! GS: Delay blocked! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated!
<Pose Tracker> Shige Kiwako has posed.
Shige Kiwako gives Riley a wry look as he mentions destroying the world. She doesn't know the guy, but that kind of claim and this kind of situation? The shadows around her have stopped moving. They're all clearly looking forward even if you shouldn't be able to tell that, speaking of spooky ongoings.
However, Xander's actions are clearly more concerning, what with the claw and his statements. She doesn't have an answer for the guardians not being able to save them. She's had similar thoughts. She's addressed similar thoughts directly. It got her promoted, sort of.
Not that she has the longest time to handle the situation in a verbal manner with the spikes growing around her. She tries to bounce up and away like any surprised feline should and finds herself grazing the thorns. Landing with stumble thanks to the venomous nastiness.
She doesn't chide them. This is their decision, this was their choice. They had alternatives and they've chosen a route that harms others.
The lantern comes up and around, casting its eerie light. "Learned the hard way that you get the help you earned just expecting someone else to do it all for you. I get it, but-" She trails off. There's something from experience to that short statement though. Part of her own issues with some of the Guardians, even if she lies to everyone including herself about it.
"I go where I'm needed to guide those that have lost the way home." She finally responds to the idea of Granas not having sent her. "You'll be coming with me soon enough." There's really not that many ways around it. The goals are anathema to everything else in the world and she can't see any happy outcomes regardless.
The closest shadow looms, gathering into something of a hunched, long haired figure. Bitter cold to the touch, a sense of anger all, but flowing from it. One hand, then the other reaches out and it blinks out, then back closer. Dragging spectral fingers through Xander with a distant scream before it fades away.
She makes it into the cathedral proper. Intent on giving herself more maneuvering space and options. Options are important..
GS: Riley Arwell partially guards Dean Stark's Burning Magazine for 135 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Riley Arwell gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Poison applied to Riley Arwell! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Riley Arwell enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Shige Kiwako has attacked Xander Lovell with Onryo's Wrath! GS: Shige Kiwako has completed her action. GS: Xander Lovell solidly guards Shige Kiwako's Onryo's Wrath for 44 hit points! GS: Weaken blocked!
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
"We can and I will."
Xander hears Riley's inhale of pain, and turns to see Riley cut and bleeding from Avril's ice. He responds with an inhuman snarl, the revenge on Avril immediate and without hesitation or mercy: leaping at her with the mantis-blade to drive into her body and bloodlet any flesh he can find -- if he hits at all. Her own beam of plasma bites into him, searing across his natural armor and leaving grooves in the corrupted flesh. Only then do Avril's words reach him. "Then we have an accord."
Ida figures it out. That Claw. And what it means. She begins to take her own transformation, monstrous as it is. Xander watches it, taking it in. "Monster against monster, then. The simple fact is... our convictions can't coexist. That's all."
Eleanor calls her light, and Xander huffs another dead laugh. "Then let me say this, Eleanor: if anyone manages to land the killing blow today, you'd better be quick with your purification. Otherwise you'll be debating how to kill one of your real friends next." The digits of his claw flex and twitch, hungry. "...But I'll save you the trouble."
Xander lunges for her and Ida and the world... spins. It's like being suddenly enveloped by darkness, cradled in an orb of it, before the lines around it begin to split and crack like a shattering egg. Massive talons dive in, trying to piece through their beings as a great Darkness strangled around her to snuff out her Light.
Ruzhen speaks in his favor, nearly -- or far more in his favor that Xander would ever have expected. This shocks him long enough that her bullets fly straight into her flesh as she hopes. He even gasps and wavers. But the problem with Xander is what she said: all the chips are on the line. He will not stop at a few bullets.
Hicalu. Well. Hicalu is screaming. "If 'he' is a Dark One, then I will find him."
Ruth calls her rain. Let them drown, he told her, if anyone did not think her pain and suffering. Let them drown. And now he chooses to do the same for himself. But her waters beat down on him in turn. "You, of all people, know why I can never stop. No matter which choice I make, I become a monster. So this is the monster I choose to be."
Dean can't let them do this. "I know," Xander says. And there really isn't any animosity in his voice. But there's no remorse, either. "You did more than most. But I can't stop." He means to meet Dean's bullets, then his eye goes wide. "RILEY!"
It's a feral instinct that happens next. The calm evaporates, and Xander leaps at Dean like a beast, ripping at him with the mantis fang blade to let whatever blood he can find fly.
Billy, the priest. The priest. It's so hard to keep hate out of Xander's eye as he has to look at Billy. It's nothing Billy did, but he represents it. All of it. That day when he was still an innocent man, beseeching help and receiving only the promise of death. A shining darkness slams into Xander, and as the dust settles, Xander is left kneeling.
"...I wonder, if I had met you the first time around, would you have tried to save him with something other than death? Or would you have killed him and called it salvation? But at least you know. Your god is dead and your church is a facade. The whole thing exists to bring Valmar back for their own 'ideal' world."
He shakes his head. "Even I know this is far from ideal." It's just his only choice, as far as he can gather.
"I will never live with his death on my conscious," Xander tells Hannah as her ice reaches for him, grabbing hold only for him to snarl and break past, letting it rip at him as he does so without regard for his own injuries. "If it's a choice between him and everything else... nothing tips those scales."
Yulie tells him it's impossible. Xander growls as her light assaults him, thrashing as if he could dismiss the pain of it with a gesture. "I am. Not. Giving. Up."
Shige promises to guide him. "Don't speak as if we're already dead." The spectral fingers reach out and scream, and Xander glares at it as if to scare aware its influence by force of will alone. "I've accepted what I've done without regret. Begone!"
Xander raises his claw again, gathering darkness to do his bidding. The corrupted world around him begins to writhe and grow again. Carnivorous plants rise, swinging around in wild abandon in a forest of maws, chomping nearly everyone on the battlefield to draw blood and feast upon it with every strike they can land.
Redi pleads with him not to do it -- because it's not what Riley wants. Her staff smashes into Xander's shoulder and he hisses, eye pinched shut before slowly opening to regard her. "What it'll do to him? You're asking me to stop for his sake? Let him die for his sake? And whose sake will it be for, Redi, when someone decides there's no place in this world for whatever it is you're becoming?" He grabs her staff with his claw and he squeezes. The very atmosphere around them darkens, and something begins to creep. In. From. Nothing.
"Yours?"
GS: Xander Lovell used Force Action: Mystic on Riley Arwell! FP up! GS: Entangle removed! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Insatiable! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 2 Combo! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Dean Stark with Insatiable! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 2 Combo! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Redi Hayworth with You're sure you're ready?! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 1 Combo! GS: Xander Lovell spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Eleanor Klein with Avenging Claw! GS: Xander Lovell spends 3 Combo on Gatling, loading 3 into Gatling! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Avenging Claw! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Hannah Curie with Feast or Famine! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ruth Pauling with Feast or Famine! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Shige Kiwako with Feast or Famine! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Li Ruzhen with Feast or Famine! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Hicalu Wilwisp with Feast or Famine! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Billy Lee Black with Feast or Famine! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Yulie Ahtreide with Feast or Famine! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 2 Combo! GS: Xander Lovell has completed his action. GS: Sneak! The true nature of Xander Lovell's attack becomes clear! GS: CRITICAL! Redi Hayworth suffers a terrible blow from Xander Lovell's Embrace Darkness for 313 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Redi Hayworth gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Quick and Shield applied to Xander Lovell! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated!
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
Total darkness collapses around ready, and she cannot see the way ethereal teeth attempt to sink in around her and pierce into her as if intent to devour her very soul.
GS: Li Ruzhen used Defend! She takes Xander Lovell's Feast or Famine attack on Hicalu Wilwisp on herself! GS: ROU|LET|TE: Severe! Gamble: Moderate! Hannah Curie solidly guards Xander Lovell's Feast or Famine for 149 hit points! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated! GS: Xander Lovell drains Hannah Curie! Xander Lovell gains 71 temporary hit points! GS: COUNTER! Eleanor Klein counterattacks Xander Lovell with Scour! GS: Eleanor Klein solidly guards Xander Lovell's Avenging Claw for 193 hit points! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus and Gleam activated! GS: Eleanor Klein enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Xander Lovell solidly guards Eleanor Klein's Scour for 87 hit points! GS: FP up! Power Burst activated! GS: ROU|LET|TE: Low! Gamble: Moderate! Shige Kiwako takes a glancing hit from Xander Lovell's Feast or Famine for 46 hit points! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Gleam activated! GS: Xander Lovell drains Shige Kiwako! Xander Lovell gains 25 temporary hit points! GS: CRITICAL! ROU|LET|TE: Severe! Gamble: Lowest! Li Ruzhen solidly guards Xander Lovell's Feast or Famine for 97 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Li Ruzhen gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Gleam activated! GS: Li Ruzhen has gained 1 Combo! GS: Xander Lovell drains Li Ruzhen! Xander Lovell gains 48 temporary hit points! GS: ROU|LET|TE: Moderate! Gamble: Very High! Li Ruzhen solidly guards Xander Lovell's Feast or Famine for 96 hit points! GS: FP up! Arcane Font, Reaction bonus, and Gleam activated! GS: Xander Lovell drains Li Ruzhen! Xander Lovell gains 51 temporary hit points! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has activated Force Action: Accelerate! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey takes a glancing hit from Xander Lovell's Avenging Claw for 94 hit points! GS: FP up! Power Burst and Reaction bonus activated! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Avril Vent Fleur suffers a terrible blow from Xander Lovell's Insatiable for 181 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Avril Vent Fleur gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Quick applied to Xander Lovell! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated! GS: Xander Lovell drains Avril Vent Fleur! Xander Lovell gains 94 temporary hit points! GS: ROU|LET|TE: Severe! Gamble: High! Yulie Ahtreide solidly guards Xander Lovell's Feast or Famine for 101 hit points! GS: Xander Lovell drains Yulie Ahtreide! Xander Lovell gains 48 temporary hit points! GS: CRITICAL! ROU|LET|TE: Moderate! Gamble: Lowest! Billy Lee Black critically guards Xander Lovell's Feast or Famine for 56 hit points! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated! GS: Xander Lovell drains Billy Lee Black! Xander Lovell gains 24 temporary hit points! GS: COUNTER! Ruth Pauling counterattacks Xander Lovell with Counter Attack! GS: CRITICAL! ROU|LET|TE: Catastrophic! Gamble: Low! Ruth Pauling suffers a terrible blow from Xander Lovell's Feast or Famine for 288 hit points! GS: Xander Lovell drains Ruth Pauling! Xander Lovell gains 100 temporary hit points! GS: Xander Lovell partially guards Ruth Pauling's Counter Attack for 54 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Dean Stark solidly guards Xander Lovell's Insatiable for 103 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Dean Stark gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Shield applied to Xander Lovell! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated! GS: Xander Lovell drains Dean Stark! Xander Lovell gains 54 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
"It's hard to tell people when you're evil!" Riley says to Redi, his tone still apologetic, if defensive. There's an undertone of 'you get that, right?' Redi's comments toward Xander make him blush again. She isn't -- QUITE -- wrong, and yet... "L-listen, don't get me wrong! This is the most romantic thing that has ever happened to anyone! It's just that... it's completely crazy and we can't do it!"
Hannah throws his apology back at him, and Riley makes a frustrated, helpless gesture. "I get it...! Fine!"
Xander leaps into battle instead of away from it, and Riley puts his face in his hands and makes a despairing sound. This is going so out of control. "Aaaa, you don't need to understand it, Eleanor!! It's crazy and we're not going to do it! I prom--" Fuck, he's going to need a different word than promise, isn't he? Who's going to believe a promise from him anymore?! Eleanor apologizes and says she's going to end it here. "Here?!" His voice rises and cracks a little with hurt and disbelief. He had only just only gotten his hope back. They can't die today, there's three more years they could have...!
"Can't things just go back to how they were?!" That's a plea for everybody.
Ruzhen -- someone he doesn't know -- chides him for not walking into the darkness alongside Xander. He blanches, apalled. Called out. "Whose side are you on?!" Well, no, Riley is the one who's being told to pick a side. But that isn't fair! He's trying to MAKE a side, a side where he and Xander get to live three more years and maybe kill a few more people but NOT end the world!! Is that so unreasonable a position!?!
Dean digs a little deeper: I think he *does* mean it, Riley. I think you're the only one who doesn't see that.
As Dean thought he might, Riley dashes into the fray to intervene in the blows he meant for Xander, the hot rods sizzling through a plant shield to deliver a burn, bringing a small yelp. "People can change their minds!!" he snaps. "I just need to talk to him!"
He'd like it if people would stop hurting Xander long enough for him to do that...! He hasn't got the time to try to drive away everyone, but there is a priest with a gun who came terrifyingly close to blowing Xander's head off, so Riley focuses his attention on him, drawing his bow and firing an arrow made of darkness that bursts into a thorny tangle of vines on impact.
Avril slams her own point home, challenging him to match Xander's conviction. He grits his teeth at the thought. Who could match Xander's conviction?! But he has to try, doesn't he?
"Xander -- Xander!" He tries to grip his shoulder and get his attention at a moment when attacks aren't flying at him. "Three years is so much time. That's twice what we already got together. I don't want to die either, but everybody has to die sometime. We're not special, we're just regular people. We weren't born into this world to... to ruin it so we could exist forever. We're just here to come and go like anybody else." His tone turns into more of a hiss, an urgent stage whisper. "And if you scare these people badly enough they might kill us today!" Eleanor already threatened to. He flashes Eleanor a very tragic look.
GS: Riley Arwell has attacked Billy Lee Black with Entangle Arrow! GS: Riley Arwell has gained 1 Combo! GS: Riley Arwell takes 36 damage from Poison! GS: Riley Arwell has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
Eleanor does not expect Riley to leave quietly. ...But she is glad, despite the Malevolence that gives her a sickening feeling in her stomach as it comes out, that Ruth is here fighting with them. No, Granas didn't stop her, back then...
But Ruth's strength can do good, yet, and Eleanor looks to her for a moment with gratitude.
Ida speaks of monsters, and Eleanor wants to call out to her that she isn't. Dean apologizes, too. And Billy...
Billy says something that gives her more faith in his religion than she's had in a long, long time. It is not hers--not anymore, but, "That's right. We save each other."
Avril's speaking of conviction...
"Hannah!" Eleanor calls. "Are you all right?" She saw the way she went down, the way she had to breathe fire. The way her magic is in full bloom.
But Yulie is--
"She's right, too."
But so is Xander. That dead laugh from Xander is like a wound. "I don't aim to see you killed, Xander. What I couldn't do before, I will today. I will seal you away, where Valmar's power can't--"
Xander lunges. She suppresses the scream that her stomach wants to make as she is enveloped by an orb of darkness. It cracks like an egg, with massive talons--
"NO!" Eleanor cries, and brilliant Light surges forth in all directions.
She hits the ground hard, though, once she's released, on one knee, bleeding despite her magic. And then, what Xander says of Granas--
"W-what?" she starts. "To... what? That's--" Dismay colors her expression.
What he says to Redi is confusing at first. But she has no time to focus on it.
"Riley," Eleanor says. "...It's too late. Until I find a way to destroy the Valmar within you, he has to be sealed, for the good of Filgaia and Lunar both. And you, too." It breaks her heart, but--she should've tried harder, a long time ago. She was wrong.
"Xander can't go back to the way he was. Not anymore. Not after taking in all that he has."
She closes her eyes, and sets her hands up, raising them above her head and then lowering them down, like a fan opening.
"Everyone!" she calls. "Don't give up! I know it's hard. He's a terrible foe. But even so..."
"I will support you. Our Light won't give up!"
She brings forth a blinding radiance; everything around her blots out in pure yellow-gold that becomes white, as she lays a blessing of power upon the room--and upon herself. It hums with energy. It soothes, like the comforting dawn after a long dark.
Eleanor rises into the air with it, her hair floating as if gravity no longer applies.
"Just hold on!"
GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Hannah Curie with Blessing of Light! GS: Eleanor Klein enters a Counter stance! GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Ruth Pauling with Blessing of Light! GS: Eleanor Klein enters a Counter stance! GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Blessing of Light! GS: Eleanor Klein enters a Counter stance! GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Blessing of Light! GS: Eleanor Klein enters a Counter stance! GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Li Ruzhen with Blessing of Light! GS: Eleanor Klein enters a Counter stance! GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Redi Hayworth with Blessing of Light! GS: Eleanor Klein enters a Counter stance! GS: Eleanor Klein has attacked Eleanor Klein with Blessing of Light! GS: Eleanor Klein enters a Counter stance! GS: Eleanor Klein has gained 3 Combo! GS: Eleanor Klein's stances have changed from Counter to Counter and Sage! GS: Eleanor Klein has completed her action. GS: Eleanor Klein heals Eleanor Klein! She gains 300 temporary hit points! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Li Ruzhen accepts Eleanor Klein's Blessing of Light for 0 hit points! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Redi Hayworth accepts Eleanor Klein's Blessing of Light for 0 hit points! GS: Redi Hayworth enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Billy Lee Black solidly guards Riley Arwell's Entangle Arrow for 0 hit points! GS: Entangle, Shieldbreak, and Slow blocked!
<Pose Tracker> Li Ruzhen has posed.
Billy's powerful affirmation drives a little smile in Ruzhen's face. Saving each other, mmm? Now there's someone with the light in him. In the dark, bedraggled world such as this... Yulie, too, is a person like that. And she seems to have the same idea with Hicalu too.
Xander raises his claw, and Ruzhen grimaces deeper and darts -- in front of the Fennec man whose fear has gripped him harder than most, though she doesn't understand what he means when he says ... 'don't call him here'. His safety is her first concern, however--
And thus, Xander's plants are on the rise, slashing with their thorns, sinking with their carnivorous teeth -- and Li Ruzhen has little but her arms to deflect against them, letting the lashing vines tear away as she acts as a defender, and when the hugest of the carnivorous teeth come down--
Her gun is in the way, as she parries incisors against steel; they bear down with more than her regular Beastwoman strength can muster, and they wrestle for a great moment or two, before she finally twists and gets a gash on her upper arm for her troubles.
"It's too damn easy..." Ruzhen seemingly mocks the effort in which she nearly died against the plant, her voice quavering. But then she continues: "It's too damn easy, isn't it? You're cursed one way, someone decides you gotta die. No way out. Whether it's the curse of Valmar or some Boss thinking you gotta push up daisies, right down at the bottom of the barrel... what a world we live in."
Ruth mentions an appeal to Riley, and it's through the blood in her mouth that she can't help but crack a smile, even as the Malevolence erupts out of the elf and her single wing stretches outward.
"I think I like you quite a lot. Faced between the man you love and the world, you'd let it all burn. If everyone in the world could make a decision like that, I don't even think I'd be facing down your kiler plants and poisons tonight."
She leaves out who, in this equation, would be missing.
But Riley does find his own conviction -- that he decides that he just needs to talk to Xander, to change his mind -- the way he's throwing himself into trouble worries her, but... this is a will that she isn't inclined to get in the way of. This is Riley's fight.
Three years...
That's a lot of time. She was a fresh-faced fifteen year old when she entered the Celesti Civil War.
She was eighteen when she left it, with the face of a demon. When the war ended, when the Union surrendered, when Verklarung exploded, when the Congressional government imploded in on itself.
And now...
Eleanor's blessing of light washes over her, and even as her body starts to scream at the charge of magic within it, she says: "Yulie... looks like we might have a bit of time, I'll cover for us, okay?" A pause. "Can you stand, sir?" Ruzhen urges, addressing Hicalu in that last moment.
GS: CRITICAL! Eleanor Klein heals Ida Everstead-Rey! She gains 404 temporary hit points! GS: Li Ruzhen has attacked Yulie Ahtreide with Moon in the Water! GS: Li Ruzhen has attacked Hicalu Wilwisp with Moon in the Water! GS: Li Ruzhen has gained 1 Combo! GS: Li Ruzhen has completed her action. GS: Eleanor Klein heals Avril Vent Fleur! She gains 305 temporary hit points! GS: Li Ruzhen heals Yulie Ahtreide! She gains 181 temporary hit points! GS: Protect applied to Yulie Ahtreide! GS: Yulie Ahtreide is now being protected by Li Ruzhen! GS: Eleanor Klein heals Ruth Pauling! She gains 308 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Redi Hayworth has posed.
"I-I know, but, come on--" Redi stammers back at Riley.
The staff hits Xander's claw. It leaves a couple of light gouges in the treated wood. Redi meets Xander's one good eye, hearing his angry words.
"Wh-what I'm becoming?" she asks, but her voice breaks. The lie she tells Xander and herself dies in her voice, if not on her lips. "I'm--I'm not going to hurt anyone! I just--I just didn't want Riley to get hurt--"
Redi hears Hicalu say no, the sort of word that somehow carries despite the fact that there's so much noise in here. It begins to dawn on her that this was a terrible idea; that this was stupid, that she made friends with Yulie and Hicalu, only to get them killed, and--
She forces herself to stop. Her voice is tight, strained, when she speaks: "Hicalu, get back--"
The shadow shoots up around her. It engulfs Redi, and her widened eyes are hidden by it as she is shielded from view from the others here. "I-It doesn't have to be like that!"
Her voice is panicked.
Ethereal teeth crush down into her left side. She can't rip away; she is instead ripped away from Xander, and there's a huge smear of blood across the floor. Her left side is a bloody, shredded mess. She rolls, rag dolling, until she comes near Yulie and Hicalu.
Eleanor's brilliant light settles down over her. A glowing aura of light that sinks down -- and then it bursts apart, shattering into sparks of golden light before it can draw into Redi. When it fades, she remains there, crumpled and bloody.
She is still for a moment.
Then her eyes snap open -- meeting Yulie's, then Hicalu's -- and they're still pale blue.
But they're glowing.
"Nngh--" She slams a hand down into the ground. And then, sparks of crimson and violet light start to drift up from her. A few, slowly at first; then more and more, until it's a blaze from around her. Her blue hat falls off her head, landing on the stone floor, and her short brown hair stpills free.
The long smear of bright red blood that she left across the floor darkens. It turns deeper red; then it turns black and dissipates, like some strange mist.
The light coming off Redi is a crackling nimbus of violet and crimson fire around her. The shadows all start to lengthen around her -- and then they all JERK, shooting away from her at odd angles. Her coat and shirt, along her side, remain bloodied and torn.
But there's smooth, unblemished white skin there. The stone underneath her begins to crumble, dusty and ashen, as if the vitality was sucked from it. It crumbles like ash, as her hand presses down into it. Redi pushes herself to her feet.
She looks away from Yulie. She looks away from Hicalu. They were going to find out, sooner or later.
She was going to find out, sooner or later.
GS: Redi Hayworth enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Redi Hayworth has attacked Redi Hayworth with Nightfire Aura! GS: Redi Hayworth has gained 1 Combo! GS: Redi Hayworth gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Redi Hayworth enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Redi Hayworth has completed her action. GS: Redi Hayworth heals Redi Hayworth! She gains 91 temporary hit points! GS: Hyper and Surge applied to Redi Hayworth! GS: Hyper applied to Redi Hayworth! GS: Eleanor Klein heals Hannah Curie! She gains 308 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Shige Kiwako has posed.
Shige Kiwako beckons the shade away, the darkness rejoining her evershifting shadow. There's a sad look at the retort. Especially with Riley more or less touching on anything she'd have said. The ears twitch at the hissed whisper. She didn't catch all of it, but she does lift her lantern to try and emphasize it. She'd already stated more or less the same right? Maybe she should have been more on the nose-. No verbal response though as she focuses again.
She once more bounces up and away, more nimble. She's been lucky so far. It gets a solid bite, drawing blood away despite her efforts. Blending with the deep reds she usually wears. It pulls something else with it though. A clinging darkness. That same clinging cold and a sense of unease. Trying to sink in. The figure following the vines back stalks, the faint outline of something or someone, only really marked by the eyes visible from the corners of one's vision.
Ruth takes a particularly rough hit, but it seems she's not the only warden of sorts here. There might be a brief moment with a snort of laughter though. A light healer and a dark healer, go figure.
That shade follows the vine all the way back, the shaman's resolve held for now. It was clear what he needed the blood for and.. preventing that regeneration seems key.
She doesn't have a response for Ruzhen's bark about how easy death comes. Not at first. "It is too easy, it's why I've always tried to make sure people were remembered.." She doesn't elaborate, not the time or place, but closer to home than she'd normally admit to.
She's still trying to get to the center of the group too. To have a chance to protect the others in her way. Light and dark. There's a snort again. Though she gets serious when Eleanor suggests sealing him, rather than removing the problem. Maybe she's spent too much time among the dead, the idea hadn't even crossed her mind.
"Can you do that?" She knows she can't. Not in a way the other two could appreciate in the here and now at least.
GS: Shige Kiwako has attacked Xander Lovell with Sinister Shade! GS: Shige Kiwako has gained 3 Combo! GS: Interrupt expired! GS: Shige Kiwako has completed her action. GS: Xander Lovell takes a solid hit from Shige Kiwako's Sinister Shade for 115 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xander Lovell gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Disease blocked!
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
"Aaaaaa-a--aa-a?" Hicalu's screaming hitches, as he hears a clash in front of him, and looks up to see Ruzhen bit into by those thorns. "H--hey!!" He yelps, scooting back. "Y--y-y-you--" saved him, is what he's trying to say.
But his attention snaps to Redi, hearing the panic in her voice, and --
"R--Redi!" He yells, as he witnesses her transformation. "W--w-w-what's-- Redi!!" Ruzhen's question is answered as he telescopes out his staff and uses it to push himself standing, quivering like a maraca.
He should run away, shouldn't he?! Shouldn't he?!
But when Xander said that so menacingly to him...
For some reason...
... some weird part of him wanted to yell, 'leave him alone!'
He's too afraid to do that, but perhaps his fear has overflowed -- because he forces himself forward to latch his arms around Redi, despite the flame and shadow all around her. No, perhaps it's because...
Those flames and shadows...
It should have been you.
It's not so much a hug as a desperate tackling embrace, given the pain of the heat she's giving off -- but somehow, he's managed to grasp something in his hand when he lunged. The most important part of his inventory...
... a muffin, which he presses, half-blind, into Redi's hands.
"Y--you're not," he stammers out, before he finally falls away from her, the fur on his fluffy fennec tail smoking from the flames. "You're not," he chokes out, again. He tries a third time: "You're n-not..."
Nope, he can't say it.
At least he was trying.
GS: Li Ruzhen heals Hicalu Wilwisp! He gains 178 temporary hit points! GS: Protect applied to Hicalu Wilwisp! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp is now being protected by Li Ruzhen! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp has attacked Redi Hayworth with Heal Berry Muffin! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp has gained 1 Combo! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp has completed his action. GS: Redi Hayworth accepts Hicalu Wilwisp's Heal Berry Muffin for 0 hit points! GS: Quick applied to Hicalu Wilwisp! GS: FP up! Hicalu Wilwisp's Reload! activated!
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
Eleanor calls out to her, and Hannah glances her way. "I'm good! Just don't hold back! He ain't pullin' any punches." She'll feel bad about her magic later, when she's alive to contemplate it.
Riley is frustrated by her refusal to accept the apology. Hannah looks at Riley. "You want this to be right? Make it right. Words ain't gonna mean a thing if you don't put action to 'em." Is she saying she might forgive him? Maybe, maybe not. But that doesn't make the message any less true.
He can say he's sorry all he wants, but if he's going to stand by and let this happen...
To Xander, who says he can't live with Riley's death on his conscious. "... Is this the world you really wanna make for him? One ruled by Valmar? Listen to him, he doesn't want you to go through with... all of this!"
More carnivorous plants erupt all about them, gnashing and wailing at them. One bites her arm, another her leg as she strugges to get her hand to her pouch. Little bit more, another tug to bring it up to her lips, and...
This is the second time today she's just spewed fire on herself to seemingly no ill effect. She tries to clear out more of the plants around her with the rest of that breath (but is careful to keep her flames well away from the other drifters.) She wrenches her arm and leg free from the charred plant matter and then turns her sights on Xander. he says he's determined, and he's backing it up, so she doesn't bother making any further pleas.
Eleanor takes a hard hit, though, and it's Hannah's turn to cry out. "Eleanor!" She looks ready to move to her, but she glances at the knights behind her and stays put. Eleanor's strong. She has to have faith in her friend. And when the blessing of light comes in, Hannah accepts it readily, feeling its soothing energy flow through her.
Eleanor's supporting them, so it's time for her to do her part. She inhales sharply, her crest graph blazing with a red aura, and exhales sharply once more. Angry red clouds billow forth, gouts of flame that burn bright and hot. There is a low roar as the flames boil the air, almost as if the flames themselves were roaring angrily. And all of it is aimed squarely at Xander.
GS: Hannah Curie has attacked Xander Lovell with Blaze! GS: Hannah Curie has gained 1 Combo! GS: Hannah Curie has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
She doesn't land unscathed, however. As she descends towards Xander, lashing out with her ARM's energy whip, he repays her for what she had done to Riley -- intentional or no.
She has but the moment to impress upon Riley how far he must endeavor to go if Xander's goal is not what he wishes to see come to fruition. And then, her left hand pressed against her side where Xander's mantis blade had drunk deeply indeed, Avril collapses.
There she lies, unmoving as chaos and violence erupt around her, as terrible truths are unveiled. Granas is dead. There is no turning back for Xander now, as far as they've gone. It's too late. Both he and Riley will need to be--
But there is light, and where there is light, there is still hope. Radiance shines forth from Eleanor as she releases but a portion of her power, and slowly, Avril stirs.
Then rises, standing tall again before Xander and Riley both.
"This is... your church," she says, and perhaps at first it might not be clear to whom she's speaking until she turns towards Billy. "Is it not...? I heard what it was that you said. Even if he has passed on, surely his will resides in you yet. I believe we have need of it now."
She bears before her the artificial Sea Medium, its surface glowing with light. "Will you not accept this gift, then?" There is light. There is too the scent of the sea.
And Avril turns towards Riley. Another might have smiled sadly, but she can only look grim.
"...I will not lie," she says, blunt as ever. "Even if you should flee this place tonight, what Eleanor said is true. What Xander wants and is now capable of... we cannot permit. I am sorry, Riley."
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Billy Lee Black with Sea of Crises! GS: Avril Vent Fleur has gained 2 Combo! GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action. GS: Avril Vent Fleur heals Billy Lee Black! He gains 77 temporary hit points! GS: Hyper applied to Billy Lee Black! GS: Xander Lovell solidly guards Hannah Curie's Blaze for 175 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Xander Lovell gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Mute blocked! GS: Hyper applied to Hannah Curie!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Dean meets that glance Avril sends him. He knows she's talking about him and Rebecca; he's seen what she's capable of when she's truly angry, when she's willing to put everything on the line to protect them. In that way, he understands how Xander feels, too. But... in this circumstance, he's really the Riley, isn't he? Dean and Avril don't have that kind of relationship, but that doesn't make it any less important or special. And if Avril were going this far for him like Xander is for Riley, then...
His eyes narrow as he makes his resolve. "Avril's exactly right, Riley!" he says. "I know you care about him just as much as he cares about you. But you're not helping anyone by--pretending things aren't what they are! You've BEEN talking to him! You said that last time, and now look where we are! How can you be at Xander's side all the time like you are and just not understand him at all?! I feel sorry for him!"
In that moment, just as he suspected, Riley jumps in the way of the swing of his combat rods--and Xander reacts with VIOLENT protectiveness, leaping at him with that hideous blade and letting blood fly. Dean shouts in pain and alarm, swinging his now-cooled rod around to mitigate some of the damage and keep him from straight-up murdering him--but that only clarifies the thought he'd just had about Avril and himself, especially when Xander then turns to do exactly the same to her.
"Avril!!" he shouts in alarm, flipping up to his feet and staggering. Something else is going on too, with someone he doesn't know, and it frankly is alarming in its own right, but Dean doesn't have time to do more than stare for a split-second before he shakes his head and pulls out the Original Mountain Medium. "Dinoginos!" he calls--and the power of the Mountain Guardian, separate from the flames of Moor Gault, to rise up the protective solidity of the mountain. There are a lot of people here who need the same, but Dean can't get all of them, and so that power thus rises up around Eleanor, Hannah, and Ida, too.
He runs/stumbles to Avril's side then, but Eleanor's power has in turn given her light and brought her back to her feet. He breathes a sigh of relief. "Glad you're okay," he says.
He looks grimly now at Riley and Xander both. Can't things go back to how they were? Dean empathizes. He wishes that, too. But... "Riley! You can't go back! *He* can't go back! It's obvious just looking at him and listening to him! You've lied to us a lot, and I forgive you--but you need to stop lying to YOURSELF! You CAN'T talk Xander down from this! He JUST SAID he's going to become the Devil for you! He's already partway there! The least you could do is TAKE HIM SERIOUSLY!!"
He'd give anything to be wrong about this. But he trusts what Avril says.
GS: Dean Stark has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Protect Crag! GS: Dean Stark has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Protect Crag! GS: Dean Stark has attacked Hannah Curie with Protect Crag! GS: Dean Stark has attacked Eleanor Klein with Protect Crag! GS: Dean Stark has gained 1 Combo! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Eleanor Klein accepts Dean Stark's Protect Crag for 0 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Eleanor Klein! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Hannah Curie accepts Dean Stark's Protect Crag for 0 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Hannah Curie! GS: Hannah Curie enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
The rain does not abate, as the violence intensifies. No matter which choice Xander makes, he becomes a monster. He chose to become a monster who'd kill the world for his beloved.
Several present are aware of the kind of monster Ruth chose to be in the darkest depths of the Otherworldly Hollow.
Overwhelmed with sensory overload from pretty much everything here, somehow, the cutting words Xander has to Billy manage to make it through that. 'Your god is dead and your church is a facade. The whole thing exists to bring Valmar back for their own 'ideal' world.'
"You lie," Ruth's voice is more 'hissing' than 'actual words' and this inscription might be an error as that noise does leave her throat with the same inflection as if those words were spoken. "You lie!!"
That rain intensifies further as she takes off charging like a feral beast, flames sparking from where her bayonet blade drags. One carnivorous plant digs into her. It doesn't slow her down, uprooting and ripping it free from the vines in desparate fury.
A second finds purchase on her leg. It is strained before a third, a fourth, a fifth join in to restrain her. A sixth hurls itself to consume the third and fifth, either out of mindless hunger at expense of the overall 'itself' or just insurance for holding the Hellion back.
She violently writhes from the bloodthirsty plants, straining so much to exert herself that even the seams of one of the shoulders of her oversized overcoat start to become distressed. The rifle discharges twice in undisciplined, emotional reflex, the bullets ricocheting but striking no one (or, really, anything helpful).
"A world with only Valmar among ussssss?" Ruth's hissing is choked with tears from the fury of the idea, managing to side her right forearm up from the mass of maws and showing the strained rosary upon that exposed forearm - making an ever greater case it could be reaching its elastic limit under the strain of trying to pull herself free.
"A world with only monsssstersss...!" Ruth's voice chokes with laughter, tears, or both.
Eleanor yells out. She will support them. 'Our' Light won't give up, as the radiance of the Light of another power once again graces her. Remembering, that feeling of something bearing down - not unkindly - as the maws continue to draw blood from her. Her wing, barely free, folds around her as she looks to the rosary in the shade of herself.
'Just hold on!'
Behind them all, the Songstress that Ruth saved continues to have a panicked, deer-eyed look.
All she can think of doing is praying. For something, anything, as all the somethings and anythings already present and available are doing all they can - no matter how inscrutable, frightening, or dangerous they are. The Granasian faith deals in absolute Good and Evil.
That not even a blessing from the Sage of Light in the flesh seems to take as the accepted sign that Granas is here to protect them from Valmar in one of Saint Heim's darkest hours since the death of Pope Zera and the fall of the Order of Ethos. Granas' strength over Valmar is absolute and uncontestable, after all. Valmar should be shattered anew on the spot.
And yet... nothing disproves Xander's words.
There are prayers, all around. They're addressed to Riley and Xander, even as several whole-heartedly accept there is no compatible middle ground for Xander's desires and the world at large. Her heart thrums with further Malevolence reflecting on how someone with so much love and loyalty can be so steeped into Valmar's evil. What does it say of... herself... when...
Staring into the depths of the murk that envelopes her as the Sage's Light shines, she murmurs.
"I have to know why. Why... he saw what he did in..." She can't complete the sentence. She might be bled dry by now, but Malevolence... at times, it takes place of blood and breath alike to simply be.
A shrieking hiss as she finds strength to tear off one of the maws by her own teeth, and fight her way out. If a God can't answer prayers for a decisive, deadly rebuke against this.
Maybe a daemon can, no matter how grotesque they'll ever be.
What strength Ruth has left after tearing herself out of those maws is to just ram herself, wing-first, into Xander to try and push the massive monster he's become back into a wall. This might be more an afterthought on her part, she's still hiding her face under her wing and staring at her rosary.
GS: Ruth Pauling has activated Force Action: Fury Shot! GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Xander Lovell with Hide Our Faces! GS: Ruth Pauling has gained 3 Combo! GS: Ruth Pauling's stances have changed to Stoic! GS: Ruth Pauling gains 29 THP from her Cautious! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida glances sidelong at Eleanor, and half-manages a comforting look. It doesn't last. Her lip twitches as Xander's barbed words sink in. "Spare us your mockery!" she snarls. "She tried--all of them tried! It wasn't their fault there was nothing they could do!" 'Them', not 'we'. Ida isn't going to count herself among those who helped the Fangs, and acknowledged their humanity.
"They tried. V--Valmar's nature is to--"
Ida trails off mid-sentence, fear welling up as that Claw races at her and Eleanor, and the world goes dark. Ida's vision swims; it's all she can do to kick off something solid--is she standing, or floating?--and leap out of the way. One of the talons grazes her chest, and even that glancing hit is enough to tear a gouge down her armor with a horrible shriek of rending biometal. A chill spreads through her body. Eleanor's light ignites, and burns it away.
Ida's feet land on the broken marble floor. She presses a hand to her chest, and it comes away studded with little bits of armor.
'Your god is dead and your church is a facade. The whole thing exists to bring Valmar back for their own 'ideal world.'
"Weren't you listening to him?" Ida says, between labored breaths. "God isn't dead. Neither is Granas. They're in here." She thumps a fist against the ragged wound in her armor, grimaces. Brilliant radiance surrounds her--Eleanor's power, and Dinoginos', channeled by Dean--mingling with hers. "Riley, please, get back--!" Ida surges forwards, draws Devil's Due, and takes aim at Xander's leg--or where she feels it is, beneath his tattered robe. Ruth leaps into the fray--and Ida hesitates, for just the moment it takes to ensure she's out of the way before she pulls the trigger.
The bullet races for Xander, trailing brilliant golden-white chi as it streaks through the air.
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey accepts Dean Stark's Protect Crag for 0 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Xander Lovell with The Devil's Tools! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: Xander Lovell partially guards Ruth Pauling's Hide Our Faces for 54 hit points! GS: FP up! Power Burst activated! GS: Xander Lovell partially guards Ida Everstead-Rey's The Devil's Tools for 94 hit points! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated!
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
Billy braces himself, Ether guns out, for Xander's rejoinder. But, instead, he gets words. His eyes grow hard. "Then?" His gaze cuts aside. "...I suppose Stone would've made sure I shot him myself." He doesn't disarm, but the look he gives after is at least sadder. For what it's worth. "That man is dead, and the Solaris Etones who coiled in the Church's heart with him...but I can't say we'd have had a kinder answer to a Part of Valmar." He knows they wouldn't have, in fact; he was called in to discuss hunting the Parts *AFTER* the fall of the Etones, after all. "As you say."
He whips his gun up again, a bolt of fire leaping off the barrel. "This is hardly ideal."
But the shot goes wide, as Xander's counter drags at him, and forces Billy to jump up and away from the gnawing plants. He fires, one, two, three, fire, wind, fire down into the plants, then hits the triggers to retract the arm holsters so the Ether cartridges can cool. He plants his feet...
And sees an arrow coming his way. He grimaces. Not the first time a bereaved lover has shot at him for fighting a monster, actually. He sweeps his Etone habit, and a shining pulse of golden Ether - Granas' light, or rather Billy's own - shatters the incoming bindings, allowing BIlly to complete a spin. Stop.
He hears Avril's words. That one stops him, and he takes a deep breath. "...Yes," he agrees, quietly, and offers her a small, kind smile. "Be he slain or fiction...I will strive to be the man he would have wanted of me. This is how I will honor those the church did not try to save. Not the murderer Bishop Stone tried to forge, but...nonetheless..."
"...a man who will fight for God's world!" He charges off the mark, leaping at Xander without weapons in hand - because what he hits him with is his FOOT, spinning a booted kick out from under his habit to the side of his head. The motion carries him past, where he slams into the tile work, reaches under his coat and finds a long-barreled ARM which he hurls upward, and then he yells, "Now, sir, I'll have you tell me!"
He leaps again, this time using powerful Ether-enhanced legs to bound over Xander's head - and catch the spinning longbarrel out of the air, leveling it down as his trajectory passes its zenith.
"What is this business about Valmar in the Church!" Billy yells, and then a beam of light erupts from the Ether cannon, strong enough to send him arcing away!
GS: Billy Lee Black has attacked Xander Lovell with Banfrau! GS: Billy Lee Black has gained 1 Combo! GS: Billy Lee Black's stances have changed from Sage to Hero! GS: Billy Lee Black has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Yulie Ahtreide has posed.
Xander says he's giving up... and Yulie nods in understanding.
"...I'm sorry." She apologizes again. ...Because if he won't give up... then they'll have to fight. This isn't something he asked for, that she can tell. She doesn't like it, but...
Right now, this is the only option either of them have.
And then, darkness rises in the form of carnivorous plants. They bite and snap, each wearing at Yulie's reserves of strength as they close in on her. It takes some after, but she manages to cut through her attackers.
Still... going on the defensive so much is starting to rapidly exhaust her. So much that she doesn't realize what's descending on Redi until it's too late.
"Redi!" Yulie gasps, as teeth crush down on her. She hurries to her side as she's hurled over to them. Instinctively, she draws out a Crest Graph, even though Redi's told her before that it doesn't work...
Eleanor gets to her first, though - which means Yulie gets a front-row seat to what happens. The way that golden light sinks toward her - and then bursts apart. The crimson and violet light that sparks up off her, building into a blaze. The way the stone crumbles beneath her as she stands...
Yulie can't help it. It's reflexive. Her eyes open wide and she takes a step back, a hand clasping over her mouth. She realises what she's done a second later.
"Redi, what...?" Yulie starts hesitantly, unable to find the words. Ruzhen's words snap her out of it a moment later.
"R-Right. Thanks, Rue..." Yulie replies with a nod. ...She stows away the healing graph, now that she knows she won't need it, and draws out another.
This one a spell of defense - hexagonal shapes of light race along the floor, rising up in walls of honeycomb-patterned blue and yellow light to provide some protection for her allies.
GS: Yulie Ahtreide has activated Force Action: Extend! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has attacked Redi Hayworth with Protect! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has attacked Hicalu Wilwisp with Protect! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has attacked Li Ruzhen with Protect! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has attacked Shige Kiwako with Protect! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has attacked Dean Stark with Protect! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has attacked Billy Lee Black with Protect! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has gained 2 Combo! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Li Ruzhen accepts Yulie Ahtreide's Protect for 0 hit points! GS: Quick and Shield applied to Li Ruzhen! GS: Shield applied to Yulie Ahtreide! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Xander Lovell takes a solid hit from Billy Lee Black's Banfrau for 187 hit points! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated! GS: Redi Hayworth accepts Yulie Ahtreide's Protect for 0 hit points! GS: Quick and Shield applied to Redi Hayworth! GS: CRITICAL! Shige Kiwako accepts Yulie Ahtreide's Protect for 0 hit points! GS: Quick and Shield applied to Shige Kiwako! GS: Quick applied to Yulie Ahtreide! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Billy Lee Black accepts Yulie Ahtreide's Protect for 0 hit points! GS: Quick and Shield applied to Billy Lee Black! GS: Shield applied to Yulie Ahtreide! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp accepts Yulie Ahtreide's Protect for 0 hit points! GS: Quick and Shield applied to Hicalu Wilwisp! GS: Avril Vent Fleur accepts Dean Stark's Protect Crag for 0 hit points! GS: Shield applied to Avril Vent Fleur!
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
The more blood that spills, the more the spark of life gleams in Xander's eye. The higher he carries himself. The faster he moves and more eager and precise his strikes become. No matter how he's shot and struck. No matter the spells. No matter the bullets and blades and that constant, pouring rain.
Riley grips hold of Xander, and Xander turns to look at him. "They're not going to let us walk out of here. They can't." Avril backs up his point, and Xander glances at her and back again, his face as helpless to that point as it is determined to defy it. "But I promised to save you and I meant it. Besides..." He looks to the others.
"Given the obnoxious tenacity of the Drifter community, I expect some of you will survive the Day of Darkness to see the world that comes after." He sighs. "I've already made emotional peace with the possibility. As Valmar, I may even be able to shelter a chosen few from the inevitable. Though I don't really care for the company... I'll leave that selection up to Riley."
Eleanor vows to seal him, and Xander's eye narrows under the harshness of her healing Light. "You don't want to see me killed? I suppose the keyword there is see, isn't it? You were fine with it as long as it was going to be by Riley's hand, weren't you? Using a stolen formula to let it happen." Riley promised Eleanor wouldn't have hard feelings about that. All Xander has left of anything are hard feelings.
Ruzhen continues to not hate him, which is frankly baffling. Xander sputters a little. That's one way to unbalance him? "...Not everyone's given the same choices," is all he can say. "But this is what I'm doing with mine."
That also includes brutalizing Redi. "I'm not the one who's going to hurt him! I'm not the one who wants him dead!" She raises back up with an aura as cursed as his own. Xander huffs out a sound: resignation, perhaps. He intends to end a world or two. What use is it to worry for another one of the cursed?
Hannah is another. She tells Riley to make it right. "Will you be so eager to 'make it right' when it's your turn, Hannah? How much destruction can your existence bring before the people around you decides it's too much?" He hardens his gaze. "It won't be ruled by Valmar. Valmar is barely anything. An instinct. A hunger. It has no will. But I will become that will. A man was Valmar before, and I'll repeat the process." Her flames come, and fire is exactly the right element to use... on the flowers. Half of Xander burns. The other, bones and scales, resists. He snarls through it, smacking his own infested face to stamp out the flames, embers clinging to the burnt petals.
Shige speaks of remembrance. "I don't need to be remembered. Once we're dead, that's it. I won't fall over because I'm promised pretty gestures after."
Hicalu screams. He screams for his friends who get hurt. Who protect him. Xander blocks it out, all of it out, because he's only doing the same, without the screaming. He could. He has before.
Dean has a speech for Riley now, and Xander balks. Clearly Xander was expecting a number of possible responses for his decision, but Ruzhen and Dean's words were not anywhere near among them. His mouth hangs upon, an urge to argue forming on impulse because it's all against Riley. Because Xander knows why. "That's not -- He --" Xander clenches his jaw. "It's because he thinks he doesn't deserve it! He doesn't -- he's never understood what he's worth!"
Ruth calls him a liar, which under any other circumstance Xander might simply take on the chin. "Sorry," he does not sound sorry, "Was that the missing piece in everyone's understanding?" He's speaking calmly for someone having a gargoyle charge at him. But that's what the plants are for.
"Yes," Xander says to Ida, definitively. "There was nothing anyone could do for us." And that's why it's come to this. But like him, Ida will get back up again if she falls. She stands with Billy's words: Granas is not dead. He is within them, working through them. "Then I guess Valmar will be destroying Granas a second time."
Only monsters, Ruth says in her suffering. Xander looks, for a very brief moment, sad. "...No. There's a lot of beauty in this world. I don't relish its loss. But that shouldn't mean anything to any of you." He's going to destroy it regardless. Ruth finally braks free and rams him while he's contemplating this. He whips around to look to her, but either does not choose to move or cannot in time, slammed and pinned against the wall as she stares at that useless, meaningless rosary.
Ida's shot strikes while he's prone this way, Xander biting back a wince that he forces into a glare. An Ether cannon of light blasts into him, leaving him clawing against the wall for support to keep himself upright. Billy asked him a question.
"...The reason I know all of this, and that this plan was going to work, is because your former pope had an entire body of research dedicated to the process for me to find."
Yulie is sorry. "Don't be. None of you should be. We're all protecting what matters most." For all his bitterness and mockery, that is something Xander remains well aware of. "I'm not here asking for forgiveness or pity."
That would be Riley. Sorry, Riley.
He shoves of the wall. The cathedral dims. He becomes so hard to see in the darkness, mostly noticed by the way the vicious overgrowth of the room shifts and moves as by an unseen wind. Blades strike out. Claw. Tooth. Even occasionally a dagger stabbed for flesh. The way Xander weaves himself through his attacks is precise and with intent. He obfuscates his movements with misdirection, and everyone may get the feeling there is a wrong move to make.
GS: Xander Lovell used Force Action: Mystic on Riley Arwell! FP up! GS: Poison removed! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Where are you...?! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Dean Stark with Where are you...?! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Redi Hayworth with Where are you...?! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 1 Combo! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Xander Lovell has attacked Eleanor Klein with Where are you...?! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 2 Combo! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Where are you...?! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Hannah Curie with Where are you...?! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 1 Combo! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ruth Pauling with Where are you...?! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Shige Kiwako with Where are you...?! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Li Ruzhen with Where are you...?! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 1 Combo! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Hicalu Wilwisp with Where are you...?! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Billy Lee Black with Where are you...?! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Yulie Ahtreide with Where are you...?! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 1 Combo! GS: Xander Lovell has completed his action. GS: Access! Xander Lovell takes 115 damage! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Xander Lovell's attack becomes clear! GS: Redi Hayworth suffers a terrible blow from Xander Lovell's Don't Rush for 212 hit points! GS: Interrupt applied to Redi Hayworth! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Redi Hayworth has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Xander Lovell's attack becomes clear! GS: Li Ruzhen takes a glancing hit from Xander Lovell's Don't Rush for 63 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Li Ruzhen gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Interrupt blocked! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Li Ruzhen enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Cripple expired! GS: Li Ruzhen has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Xander Lovell's attack becomes clear! GS: Yulie Ahtreide solidly guards Xander Lovell's Don't Run for 49 hit points! GS: Protect! Li Ruzhen takes 13 damage! GS: COUNTER! Eleanor Klein counterattacks Xander Lovell with Scour! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Xander Lovell's attack becomes clear! GS: CRITICAL! Eleanor Klein solidly guards Xander Lovell's Devouring Fang for 455 hit points! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Eleanor Klein enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Xander Lovell drains Eleanor Klein! Xander Lovell gains 99 temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
But for Eleanor, Sage of Light, Xander bursts through his own corrupted sea of flowers, his entire arm transformed into the fang blade as he drives it for the middle of her back.
"I won't let you separate us."
GS: Sneak! The true nature of Xander Lovell's attack becomes clear! GS: CRITICAL! Ruth Pauling takes a solid hit from Xander Lovell's Don't Hide for 193 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ruth Pauling gains 1 additional Combo! GS: FP up! Power Burst and Reaction bonus activated! GS: Dean Stark accepts Yulie Ahtreide's Protect for 0 hit points! GS: Quick and Shield applied to Dean Stark! GS: Shield applied to Yulie Ahtreide! GS: Billy Lee Black has activated Force Action: Guard! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Xander Lovell's attack becomes clear! GS: Billy Lee Black solidly guards Xander Lovell's Don't Hide for 73 hit points! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Xander Lovell's attack becomes clear! GS: Dean Stark solidly guards Xander Lovell's Don't Run for 87 hit points! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Xander Lovell's attack becomes clear! GS: CRITICAL! Hicalu Wilwisp takes a glancing hit from Xander Lovell's Don't Hide for 72 hit points! GS: Protect! Li Ruzhen takes 18 damage! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Xander Lovell's attack becomes clear! GS: CRITICAL! Avril Vent Fleur takes a glancing hit from Xander Lovell's Don't Run for 114 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Avril Vent Fleur gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Xander Lovell solidly guards Eleanor Klein's Abjure for 97 hit points! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Xander Lovell's attack becomes clear! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey suffers a terrible blow from Xander Lovell's Don't Rush for 182 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ida Everstead-Rey gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Interrupt blocked! GS: FP up! Power Burst activated! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has lost 2 Combo from Interrupt!
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Riley looks at Eleanor with alarm. "What do you mean he can't go back?! It's just one more Part--it's--it's fine if he has a claw now or whatever, that's not what I meant...!" Maybe she's saying there's too much darkness in him now, something about who he is will have changed. But Riley can work with that too. He can work with anything, as long as they're still alive! All he wants to do is go back to... to how they were living before. Whenever the thorns were dealt with, they would get to play at being ordinary people for a while, until the thorns returned and then they would have to make another kill. And the thorns ARE gone for now. All these painful questions and dilemmas could all just... go away for a while. If these Drifters would just let them leave. If Xander would stop grandstanding about becoming an evil god and come WITH him. The fight, too, is getting brutal. Riley watches with quiet horror as Redi is left slumped and bleeding on the ground. She manages to recover, but... whatever dark power has a hold on her is now plain for all to see. "Redi..." he says. Xander didn't have to expose her like that... why does any of it have to be going this way!!
Riley gestures in frustration back at Hannah. "What actions do you want! I'm not going to help all of you hurt him!" Let him keep ONE of his promises, at least...
Avril grimly tells him she can't stand for what Xander wants. "I won't permit it either! Why doesn't anyone believe I can talk him out of it!! Come on! If he's willing to end the world for me, surely I've got leverage, right? I've just got to figure out the right angle and he'll -- don't listen to what I'm saying right now, Xander!!"
Dean comes after Riley for not taking Xander seriously. How can you be at Xander's side all the time like you are and just not understand him at all?! I feel sorry for him!
Riley is caught completely off guard by this, staring at Dean with his mouth agape. "What do you mean I don't understand him!? How could you say that?! I understand him! I know what he's doing and I WANT it, that's the ENTIRE PROBLEM. I would LOVE to live forever with Xander, whether he's evil or turning into some kind of crab monster or--whatever!! But it's not something anybody should get to have, because it's HORRIBLE and CRAZY and EVERYONE WOULD HAVE TO DIE, so I'm TRYING TO BE AN ADULT ABOUT IT. Why are you giving ME shit?!" Riley summons his evil shovel out of the ground and takes a swing at Dean with it out of pure blind frustration.
Meanwhile, Xander fights on... and speaks about his plans and convictions. The words bring about a strange swirl of emotions in Riley. He ... he does sound different. Not alien. Not unwelcome. But these promises are both enticing and chilling. Letting him choose who to spare in a new world?! Telling people he's worth destroying everything? Aaah, he hates this! (And, unfortunately, he loves it.)
"Xander, this is so embarrassing, don't tell people I'm going to decide who lives in the new world, I haven't agreed to be involved in destroying or remaking any worlds...!" Xander is getting hurt... Friends (frenemies..) are getting hurt. And Xander's not wrong that they couldn't safely walk away at this point. Riley senses that he has truly lost control of the situation.
GS: Riley Arwell has attacked Dean Stark with Brush with Death! GS: Riley Arwell has gained 2 Combo! GS: Riley Arwell has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Dean Stark takes a solid hit from Riley Arwell's Brush with Death for 246 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Dean Stark gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Break blocked! GS: FP up! SOS Overdrive activated! GS: Dean Stark enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Redi Hayworth has posed.
Redi hears Riley say her name. She can't manage to look at him. Even if he knows -- knew before all of this -- she doesn't have it in her to look his way.
But she is looking someone else, as she stands up. Her pale blue eyes look at Yulie for a moment. And while they're glowing, that's a part of her that isn't half-obscured by crackling violet, crimson, and black flames. That too-bright pale blue seems to pierce through them.
So Yulie can see when her eyes widen, with hurt in them, when she steps back from her. But she doesn't say anything.
Right now, she'd like to step back from herself, too.
She turns, instead, to look at Xander. She takes a couple of steps forward.
Redi stumbles forward, with shock, when Hicalu stumbles into hugging her -- closer to a ackle, really -- and her eyes widen. She turns, looking at him. The heat from the crackling aura around her is intense. It hurts, in an instant, the moment he gets that close.
And it feels wrong: not like a crackling fire, with its uneven highs and lows, but like a steady radiation of heat coming off of her. Redi looks at him, bewildered, as she takes the muffin in her hands.
'You're n-not...'
She swallows, her words failing her. The muffin begins to char, burning and blackening, in her hands. Her eyes sting, and she looks at him before she steps back -- to keep him safe. She lifts it -- takes a bite -- and the rest crumbles to ash in between her fingers.
"...I'm sorry," she tells her friends.
She looks back to Xander. "It's not fair... having stuff like this happen to us." She kicks her staff up, from the floor; dried out flakes of black ichor fall of it, as she grabs it, then spins it out to face him. "But I don't want... whatever's happening me to hurt the people I care about! I don't want it to hurt anyone! And I'll make sure that doesn't happen! Even if it pushes them away!"
Her voice cracks on that last word.
The cathedral grows dark; the overgrowth of thorned plants around them shift. Xander comes in like a shot, weaving through them, and his claws slam into Redi's right hip. Blood splashes on the ground, flame crackling and wafting oddly when the claws pass through the air.
Redi rushes him as he stops, scythe blade driving for Eleanor. She launches into the air, and an explosion of fire and shadow erupt from her. She swings the staff back, with both hands, and the fire dances up the length of it.
She comes down and swings.
And it explodes off of her. A shadowy star fires off her staffpoint, for Xander's chest. It then explodes outward, erupting into a burst of deep red crimson flame with a powerful shockwave behind it. It blasts back into Redi, too, as the explosion's light inverts all of the colors in the room for just a moment.
GS: Redi Hayworth has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Redi Hayworth has activated Force Action: Lock On! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Formation! Redi Hayworth has attacked Xander Lovell with Calamity Break! GS: Redi Hayworth has gained 1 Combo! GS: Redi Hayworth gains 10 FP from her Daredevil! GS: Redi Hayworth has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
Eleanor had hoped that her magic could help Ruzhen, but even the adaptation's she's made for her unique needs seem not to quite do the trick. ...But what happens to Redi she doesn't suspect in the least. "What!?" Eleanor starts, seeing the Blessing burst apart. Her glowing eyes....
"Are you--"
This is not normal. Eleanor watches the shadows jerk and tear, and, "...Are you all right!?"
The battle continues. Shige asks if she can do that, and Eleanor says, "I can, in theory. But not while he's actively fighting us. I tried once before that way, and it failed."
Hicalu... embraces his friend. Smoking. "Hicalu!" she calls in dismay. "No!"
But Hannah is all right, at least--and Eleanor, when Hannah looks ready to move to her, gives her a look. She's all right. But Avril is the one with words to heal, this time. To heal, and... to give the truth.
"Thank you," she says to Dean, as she feels the Guardian's power, the strength of the mountain. It will help. She winces at what Dean says, but she doesn't countermand him. Instead, she watches as Ruth... well, as Ruth has her own crisis, as the Songstress does too. And Ida--
Billy. "Brother Black," Eleanor manages. "I... I believe in your hope."
But they are fighting, still. Still, the battle continues, and ELeanor watches as Xander speaks of being Valmar--and her vow, well...
"I know you won't forgive me for that. But it's not because I'm squeamish now, Xander. It's because the evil within you is greater than one man, now. I cannot allow it to spread. ...But you're right. It's my cowardice that let it get this far."
"I will not mistake pity for wisdom in the future."
But the cathedral dims. Eleanor cannot see Xander, so she does the only thing she can do. THere may be a wrong move, but...
She shines, suddenly, as those weaving attacks come. But Xander bursts through, and that blade scythes into Eleanor, shattering her barrier and impaling her in one strike. "Gh--"
She falls off, hitting the ground suddenly on hands and knees, her orange dress stained red already. "Xander, I--"
It is almost not enough. Almost. But there is a sudden, faint Light...
Eleanor's voice murmurs, though Eleanor cannot speak, "I wasn't strong enough to fight you back then. I did my best... but it wasn't enough."
Eleanor puts a hand up to her wound. "I..."
"But it isn't time yet for my mission to be over. For the sake of the future..."
Eleanor shines, suddenly, and rises to her feet--not of her own power. Her bloody dress transmutes into elaborate golden robes, familiar to those who saw Rauru in the visions. Her eyes gleam, golden.
"I could not stop you that day. ...But maybe one day." Eleanor's voice dims, as Eleanor herself suddenly looks up, blinking once. "You... I?"
She realizes; she has to use this energy. And suddenly she surges with Light, overflowing with power that glows at her eyes, at her fingertips, at her heart.
"Grant me Courage," Eleanor prays, and kneels down.
A red light suddenly bursts forth all around her, a crystal shell coloring in until flames erupt outward in all directions in a dome. Its purifying flames BURN through the foilage at her feet, and perhaps more--
But her allies do not feel its bite. Only the enemy, today.
A flame not seen on Filgaia's face in millennia brilliantly shines into the world.
DC: Eleanor Klein switches forms to Radiant Sage Eleanor!
GS: Eleanor Klein has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Eleanor Klein has attacked Xander Lovell with Din's Fire! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Eleanor Klein has attacked Riley Arwell with Din's Fire! GS: Eleanor Klein has gained 1 Combo! GS: Eleanor Klein has completed her action. GS: Access! Eleanor Klein takes 30 damage! GS: Interrupt! Attack weakened! GS: Xander Lovell partially guards Redi Hayworth's Calamity Break for 183 hit points! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated! GS: Redi Hayworth drains Xander Lovell! Redi Hayworth gains 98 temporary hit points! GS: Strain! Redi Hayworth takes 50 damage! GS: Li Ruzhen has activated Force Action: Snipe!
<Pose Tracker> Li Ruzhen has posed.
Redi's been a capable enough combatant that Ruzhen hasn't had to pay much heed from her, but even she can't help but bring her eyes around as she spots the glowing eyes as Eleanor's light washes over her. The sparks, crimson and violet, turning into strange and aberrant lines, shooting off from her; the way the stone is drained, her white skin decidedly abnormal...
"You..." is the only whisper that escapes Ruzhen's lips.
Stunned, he watches Hicalu leap to the embrace, and grimaces as she thinks that at least the best way, if she also had some kind of dark influence, is for the Fennec man to appeal to her. Much like how she hopes for Riley, but...
"... yeah," is Ruzhen's answer towards Xander. "I can see that. And what else can do you do but that? Tell you the truth, I kinda envy the honesty you got going on. You have no illusions -- even if you backed down now, you'd only be living a life where people will only love you conditionally. Like it always was, I wager, since the day you knew you were cursed, right?"
The detective shakes her head as the cathedral dims, and Xander simply just disappears from sight, blades striking out within the darkness, with claw, tooth, plants--
Ruzhen empties her lungs of breath, and lets her conscience succumb, just for that very moment--
Her gun, so abused as a tool for parrying, meets his blade in a momentuous spark of metal upon chitinous Valmar appendage. There's an uncomfortable 'schlurk' of a noise, as the very tip of his Claw draws blood from her flesh.
"The world's too full of people who'll flip their tune about you at the drop of a hat... so let me tell you straight, from one monster to another..."
A world with only monsters, Ruth's words echo in her ears.
"I respect what you're doing."
And with that, her eyes FLARE wide open--
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ntlWLPPNq4
--no, she does not see. She does not see within the dimness of this Cathedral. No, it isn't because it is dark; it's because, infused with the power of Yulie's protective magics, and from Eleanor's magics earlier, something within her blood, within her flesh, within her organs and bones, has gone into overdrive.
She does not see.
She does not perceive.
She does not not perceive.
In that liminal state of neither perception or non-perception; within only that brilliant pinnacle for a moment, what passes for vision when one has escaped mind and body, existing only on a realm that can only said to be formless--
She sees what she must shoot.
And thus, with fluidity of movement within her arm, her hand on the grip of the revolver, the movement of her thumb on the hammer, the trigger finger curling... an action that can't possibly be born of this waking world.
Then, that moment passes, and Ruzhen suddenly flinches and erupts with a violent cough of blood as the formless dream passes... and cold, harsh reality weighs down upon her again.
Li Ruzhen is not able to achieve enlightenment.
GS: Li Ruzhen has attacked Xander Lovell with Neither Perception nor Non-Perception! GS: Li Ruzhen has gained 2 Combo! GS: Li Ruzhen has completed her action. GS: Xander Lovell used Defend! He takes Eleanor Klein's Din's Fire attack on Riley Arwell on himself! GS: Xander Lovell partially guards Eleanor Klein's Din's Fire for 196 hit points! GS: Dispel! Quick, Shield, and Slow removed! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 1 Combo! GS: CRITICAL! Xander Lovell solidly guards Eleanor Klein's Din's Fire for 156 hit points! GS: Xander Lovell takes a solid hit from Li Ruzhen's Neither Perception nor Non-Perception for 253 hit points! GS: Strain! Li Ruzhen takes 86 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
What's happening to Redi hurts Hicalu, but give him credit: he doesn't yell at her even a little bit, even when Eleanor cries out to him.
"Y--you c-c-c-can't!" Hicalu yells, to Xander, ears pinned to the back of his head. "Y-you'll b-b-bring him here! You'll bring him h-here!! IT'LL ALL GO AWAY--!"
He reaches out to Riley, and cries: "You know, right? You know! You know! It comes together and the world falls down and it doesn't exist any more! It's gone now!" Raving, at least, makes his stammer fade, but what replaces it is no less unnerving.
"Why did you leave yourself lying around in there?!" Hicalu screams, now, as he runs from the shadows. They lash at him -- but it would be worse, if he curled up and hid. If he wasn't searching for -- "What do you want with us?!"
Is he...
... addressing Valmar?
Does he even realise what he's saying, right now...?
"He didn't even wanna be there! Why did you take him!?"
There!
Hicalu pulls up, and whirls around, his hands forming a perfect Symbological salute. The skill he shows in performing it, this time, doesn't match at all with his trembling hands from last time. Because, Hicalu...
... has been summoning this demon...
... since he was three years old, and old enough to help in the kitchen.
"DARK DEVOURER!" He invokes, his voice tearing, as that demon from hell rises up to grasp at Xander's feet. It's not a flower -- but it grasps just as insistently.
GS: Hicalu Wilwisp has activated Force Action: Fury Shot! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp spends 1 Combo on Poison! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp has attacked Xander Lovell with Dark Devourer! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp has gained 2 Combo! GS: Hicalu Wilwisp has completed his action. GS: Hannah Curie has activated Force Action: Guard! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Xander Lovell's attack becomes clear! GS: CRITICAL! Hannah Curie solidly guards Xander Lovell's Don't Run for 134 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Hannah Curie gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Sneak! The true nature of Xander Lovell's attack becomes clear! GS: CRITICAL! Shige Kiwako suffers a terrible blow from Xander Lovell's Don't Hide for 248 hit points! GS: FP up! Gleam activated!
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
Dean calls her name.
Avril does not, immediately, respond or move, not even to the solid wall of protection he summons about her. It's as he reaches her side that a minor miracle occurs. "I'm sorry to have worried you, Dean," she says with a slight smile once she's up, healed and bolstered by Eleanor's light. Her gaze turns towards Xander. "...We cannot take him lightly. He means what he says: he intends to become Valmar, so long as he can save Riley. If..." She closes her eyes for a moment as if in reflection, only to then shake her head.
But of course, this is something Dean has already realized before Avril points it out.
But of course, she is not saying it for his benefit, either.
She showers the benedictions of a Guardian upon Billy, which might suffice in the absence of Granas' own grace. She inclines her head at his pronouncement -- that he acts as someone who will fight for Granas' ideals, even if he never existed or was dead. Even those ideals that the church never would or could live up to.
But it is strange, in a way. Where has she heard these words of his before?
Avril is silent when Xander addresses the point she made, underlining the idea for Riley's benefit. It might have been a more strategic thing to not speak so plainly of Xander's fate. Another might have certainly thought so. But Avril-- she does not consider Xander and Riley friends, as such, but neither does that mean she feels nothing for their plight. They have shed blood because they must, and now...
It is only right that Riley understand the stakes and comprehend the consequences. She won't lie to them about what this means.
Xander had said he was determined to walk this path. If there were any doubt remaining regarding his intent, here it would evaporate utterly: he dashes for them in the darkness that suddenly grips the cathedral. It's hard for her to see very far about her and Avril turns, seeking his advance as overgrowth nearby rustles as if to foretell that attack. In anticipation of a strike, she dodges left and then realizes
she chose poorly
as the blade lances inwards.
It cracks off the stony shield that manifests before her, courtesy of the Mountain Guardian's blessing. The strike is diverted: still a terrible wound graces her left arm but it is far less terrible than the blow it could have otherwise been. Avril, bleeding, falls back.
"Dean," she says, her blade in hand once again, though it might be more accurate to call what she holds the empty hilt of a sword. "Are you prepared...?"
There's no time, in her mind, for further words or speeches: they must now do what they can with what they have. Focusing on Xander -- or where she thinks he might be -- she pulls the trigger slowly, releasing a blast of plasma. "Dean! Now!!"
GS: Avril Vent Fleur has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Formation! Avril Vent Fleur has attacked Xander Lovell with Javelin Bullet! GS: Avril Vent Fleur has gained 1 Combo! GS: Avril Vent Fleur has completed her action. GS: Xander Lovell solidly guards Hicalu Wilwisp's Dark Devourer for 90 hit points! GS: Xander Lovell solidly guards Avril Vent Fleur's Javelin Bullet for 124 hit points! GS: Shieldbreak blocked! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated!
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
'...No. There's a lot of beauty in this world. I don't relish its loss. But that shouldn't mean anything to any of you.'
Ruth, momentarily, is frozen in her current posture. Her rain continues, because two eyes isn't enough for all the tears sometimes. Tears that she might not have much right to shed, for how many she created in her wake.
The cathedral dims. Not even Ruth can see the glow of her eyes in it. She whirls, staggers, tongue flicking vigorously. She steps away from an attack that might have truly been meant for her, in whole, only to stagger outright into a series of claws that might have been meant for another.
She didn't hide. But she didn't save herself.
Fresh dark purple blood that'll later dry to the 'correct' color for most people leaves her with a screech as greater clarity eventually comes to her. The resolve of some to not let something hurt others. The screaming, pleading of that young Beastfolk man. Deeply honed battlefield instinct catching the trail she notices Ruzhen make a shot unimaginably keen that would impress even the greatest sharpshooters of this era - a look into something beyond typical mortal 'peak.'
Colors invert to blinding white in the wake of Redi's power, as Eleanor shines brightly and blindingly to a flame that should burn. Ruth lost nearly all sense of temperature sensitivity in her transformation to this new life, but even with this loss, the flames cross by her without even a hint of sting or pain.
The Dark Devourer invoked, Ruth's eyes settle upon the frightened Songstress who edges away from her. Does she see her for who she is? Fear, anguish, all around. She has to keep her eyes open so she can see who's who. All the flinching, all the blood, all the anger and anguish, and her tongue continues to flick incessantly like she's in the middle of a buffet.
"...A world of love, jusssst... for you two," and whoever Riley decides to bring, important point!!! She glazes over that in her musings as she holds the rifle steady while lumbering forward.
"...All you do to be worthy of the love of one," she starts to feel the sensation of a chill from her own rain - relief from that bit of sensory deprivation. She sucks in more breath as she becomes more aware of her blood loss and shortness of breath, a last look to her Granasian rosary that is still clinging to her.
"If all the world has is fear, pain... despair," her voice steadies down from the incessant hissing, "without a Granas to answer it, then," she walks in such a way that she casts a shadow against the backdrop of the incredible powers on display as she raises the rifle to hold it true.
"Let me be worthy of it." A world filled with those afraid and hurt, a place for someone like her to be both its perpetrator and protector, against a world filled only with the mutual love of the inseparably devoted.
She pulls the trigger with a deafening bang, as she once again rebukes a heartfelt devotion.
GS: Ruth Pauling has activated Force Action: Snipe! GS: Ruth Pauling has activated Force Action: Fury Shot! GS: Ruth Pauling has attacked Xander Lovell with Resigned Knock! GS: Ruth Pauling has gained 1 Combo! GS: Ruth Pauling gains 23 THP from her Cautious! GS: Cover expired! GS: Ruth Pauling has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Xander Lovell suffers a terrible blow from Ruth Pauling's Resigned Knock for 231 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Yulie Ahtreide has posed.
Even through the flames, Yulie can still see Redi's eyes. ...She can see them - and what's more, she can see the hurt. For that moment, Yulie feels like most horrible person in the world. What's worse...
She feels like a hypocrite. Her reaction... it was the same thing she always feared she'd receive from people, upon realising what she was capable of. And she inflicted that same reaction upon someone else.
Shame crosses Yulie's face and she looks away, unable to meet those too-bright pale blue eyes.
She looks instead to Xander, who tells her not to be sorry.
"...It's not something you ask for." Yulie replies. "I can still regret it. Because, like you said... we're protecting what matters to us."
The Cathedral dims... and the overgrowth shifts. It's like the entire room is trained on her like a blade. Instinctively Yulie casts her arms out, extending her barrier around herself.
This turns out to have been a wise choice. If she had stepped forward, even just a few steps... even her barrier might not have been able to save her. She can't see it - but she can feel the impact. Her shield blinks out.
She looks down at the bracelet on her wrist.
...She has to, at this point.
"...Linking to the Material." Yulie intones. Her voice is low on energy - resigning to herself to what's happened and what has to happen. The bracelet unfurls into its true form - the access unit to a terminal host in orbit. "Starting up - Code F."
She doesn't need enthusiasm for the program to execute. She just needs to run the code and limit the resulting damage.
Something begins to form. To those familiar with the Guardians, it's like a Guardian has been invoked - but one missing a crucial key part of. Bit by bit it begins to form behind her, a great beast with two crystalline horns glowing with green light growing out of its back and claws like scythes. Its eyes lock onto Xander - and with a roar it becomes wreathed in wind, a swing of its talons sending air sharpened like a blade rushing at him. And then it disperses, departing into the wind once more.
GS: Yulie Ahtreide spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Formation! Yulie Ahtreide has attacked Xander Lovell with Material Drive - Set E! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has gained 1 Combo! GS: Yulie Ahtreide has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
Eleanor is supporting everyone with her magic, but so does Dean, through the power of a medium. Hannah accepts this, too, grateful that the Guardians see fit to share their blessing with her, still. "Thanks, Dean. 'Preciate it."
But she watches Ruth charge Xander, can hear the hissing in her voice... she's worried, abut for Ruth, not of her. She knows how important that rosary is to her, and the things being said... well, Hannah wouldn't take it kindly in Ruth's position, either.
But Xander has a retort for her-- Those words sting, and the fierce, glaring expression she's been wearing this entire encounter cracks just a little bit. What will she do when it's her turn? "I-- I..." She shrinks back a bit. "I ain't usin' my magic for destruction... I'm tryin'... tryin' to use it to protect..."
Congratulations(?), Xander might have just stabbed at one of Hannah's oldest fears she's been harboring not just for the last five years, but in some way, her whole life.
What will become of her when she becomes a burden to those around her?
Zephyr swoops over to her and squawks at her. Hannah doesn't respond, but a second squawk finally seems to pull her out of it. "R-right!"
Riley wants to know what actions she might want out of him. She gives him a long look-her expression has hardened again, but she does look away rather quickly. It's a difficult situation all around, and... she doesn't have an answer for him. "He ain't gonna let himself be talked down. Not if he's willin' to go this far."
But the cathedral grows dark, and Zephyr takes off into the air again as Xander starts to move in the darkness, amidst the vines and plant growth. Zephyr's spotting, she's spotting, and still the attack comes out of nowhere, catching Hannah by surprise. There's a quick movement, the start of a swipe as she attempts to bring forth a barrier but it's a moment too late--all it does, perhaps, is stem the force of the blow enough to keep it from being much worse... but she still ends up with dagger briefly in her side. She stumbles back, clutching her side.
"Dangit... he's feedin' off of all our blood, ain't he..." And when he goes after Eleanor, and she responds with all that power...
She doesn't have the fire of the gods, but she does have her own warped magic to rely on. And her aura grows stranger and more twisted as she starts to pull deep. Power floods into the two crest graphs she removes from her pouch--one thrumming a solid orange and the other a brightly blazing red.
She lifts one foot and stomps it. Something rumbles beneath the floor tiles, but it's not more vines that pop out--this time, it's an arrange of sharp stone spikes that spring forth all around Xander, attempting, at the very least, to pin him in--
And if they're all lucky, to skewer him in place.
But all of that is just meant to distract him, hold him in place for another spell to hit. Eleanor calls down the flames of the ancient goddess, but Hannah's flames come directly from the Ley--or mostly from the Ley. The flames she summons are not pure and divine, they are raw and angry, threatening to unravel even as they surge forth, burning plants and scorching tile as they go.
GS: Hannah Curie has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Hannah Curie has activated Force Action: Lock On! GS: Hannah Curie spends 2 Combo on Gatling, loading 2 into Gatling! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Hannah Curie has attacked Xander Lovell with Elemental Conjunction! GS: Hannah Curie has gained 1 Combo! GS: Hannah Curie has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
One key part of Xander's plan hadn't sank in until now--but Dean, and then Xander himself, articulate it. Xander is going to become Valmar. Valmar is a vessel. (Valmar was a man, Ida knows that, but was he a man who became the vessel, or--)
Oh, Ida thinks, and she feels something twist inside her, like the words she spoke moments ago are being put to the test already. Can anyone stop this? He'll kill everyone. Everyone. Everyone Ida loves, and everyone in this precious, fragile, sickened world--
Ida grips Devil's Due--the ARM her mother wielded as an Etone, reconstructed--like a holy talisman, cradling it in both hands as she steps into a tight, defensive stance. Her head whips about as the room fades into darkness. Her knuckles whiten, and her eyes go wild. Some half-unhinged part of her mind wonders if she really did see that one letter carrier with an aura of wrong around her.
Darkness, everywhere. Ida waits for a tell, but there is no tell, only the strike. Xander's blade slams into her right shoulder, and only an instinctual twitch of the flesh spares her from impalement. A fist-sized chunk of armor falls to the ground and shatters. Blood stains the floor.
Ida's eyes dart sideways and widen, the pupils shrinking. "ELEANOR!" Her voice is a high, raw shriek.
These are the facts on the table. Xander so loves Riley that he would sacrifice the world to ensure he lived. Riley so loves Xander that he would let him do that, even as his conscience rejects the notion. And then there is Ida, her heart scraped raw, torn between helpless, desperate fury that he'd do this, and rage at herself for not being able to fix this.
Later, she will reflect on the fact that this helped her understand Valmar's nature far, far better than any of Sister Mary Agnes' lectures.
Ida's heart, scraped raw, bleeds for these two men, as it has bled for so many others. But she's learned from her own brush with darkness. She's stronger than she knows. Xander has his convictions. She has hers.
Ida clenches her hand into an armored fist. Golden-white chi boils off it as she settles into a tight, tense stance, left arm raised to guard. The rest of the battle falls away, and for a moment, it's just her and Xander, conviction against conviction.
BANG.
Ruth's gunshot tears through that monofocus like the sound of a starter's pistol. Ida charges--blurs--across the intervening space, the dull roar of a shockwave leading her attack. Her fist drives forth like a piston, hooking under and around in an uppercut. Most of the energy is directed up, to throw Xander off his feet. Maybe even into the ceiling. (It's a high, vaulted ceiling.)
GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has activated Force Action: Full Clip! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey spends 3 Combo on Headshot and Gatling, loading 1 into Gatling! GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Ida Everstead-Rey has attacked Xander Lovell with Unbroken Lotus Fist! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has gained 2 Combo! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey's stances have changed to Avenger! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Xander Lovell partially guards Yulie Ahtreide's Material Drive - Set E for 172 hit points! GS: Quick and Shield applied to Yulie Ahtreide! GS: Xander Lovell solidly guards Hannah Curie's Elemental Conjunction for 142 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Xander Lovell solidly guards Ida Everstead-Rey's Unbroken Lotus Fist for 154 hit points! GS: FP up! Power Burst activated!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Dean smiles back at Avril in relief as she stirs. "You don't need to be sorry. We're both in a pretty tight spot, huh?"
Because, as they both realize, there is no going back from this moment. They simply cannot spare Xander any longer.
Dean shoots Eleanor and Hannah a firm smile and a nod when they both thank him for his protective magic. He doesn't have much more opportunity to talk about that, though, because Ida is overtaken by the horror of the reality that is before them. As she doesn't express it, Dean focuses back on Riley. "If you understand him, then why do you keep trying to contradict everything he says?" Dean shoots back to Riley.
Xander, too, sputters and tries to come to Riley's defense, and Dean rounds on him. "But Riley's got a point! This all goes for you too, Xander!! If Riley's right and he DOES understand you, then isn't it really insulting for *you* to say he doesn't?! You keep making decisions for him and you don't listen to what he has to say, either! He's not some little kid you have to keep from hurt himself! You two keep talking at each other, you both know you're in this together, but you never seem to see eye-to-eye!
"For two people that love each other... THAT'S JUST TOO SAD!"
Perhaps in response, Xander then calls up an overwhelming darkness, hiding himself within it to strike out at everyone he can reach. Dean, knowing that it'll be too late to react once he's close enough, opts instead to fall into a defensive stance and keep himself protected. It's a gambit that works out; by the time Xander lashes out at him, the cross of Dean's paired ARMs is able to soak a lot of the damage he would've otherwise taken.
Of course, then Riley bonks him on the head with a demon shovel, and demon shovels are just not something you can comically bonk someone on the head with. It CRACKS on Dean's skull, and he's left staggering for a moment, trying to reclaim a hold on reality while his eyes spin. Thankfully, it's not as bad as it could have been thanks to Yulie's magic, and he stammers, "Th-thanks, Yulie..."
Granas doesn't mean much of anything to him. Dean's never been a religious kind; Capo Bronco was such an out-of-the-way town that they at best got a missionary who came by once a year to preach, and their preaching had nothing to do with Golems so they never caught Dean's interest. Granas didn't send him, and Granas isn't in his heart, either. What *is* in his heart is the care that is breaking it for his friends he couldn't help.
That's why he focuses up as Avril staggers with him, bleeding. That's why he tightens his grip on his paired ARMs. That's why he nods once back at Avril. "It isn't fair to them," he murmurs. "But it never was."
He hates it. But all of them have to do what they must, now. Xander can't let Riley die, and Dean can't let Xander end the world.
As Avril fires a blast of plasma into the darkness where Xander might be, Dean raises Twin Fenrir and opens fire with them as well. "Here we go, Avril!!" They briefly charge and then *dis*charge a pair of plasmic blasts of their own. The three bolts rotate around each other, then merge into one *mega* blast that will explode on contact.
Whatever that contact ends up being.
GS: Dean Stark spends 2 Combo on Headshot! GS: Dean Stark enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Formation! Dean Stark has attacked Xander Lovell with Javelin Bullet! GS: Dean Stark has gained 1 Combo! GS: Dean Stark enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action. GS: Dean Stark has activated Force Action: Snipe! GS: Dean Stark has activated Force Action: Lock On! <Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
Billy lands on his feet, stowing the ether cannon. Xander's words should rock him to his core. But...his jaw just sets, eyes casting down. "Such a deep rot," he sighs. "Was that Solaris, too...?"
But. His frustrations with his church are not frustrations with his faith. Right now, both are beneath stopping Xander from eating the world. Or starting the process that would. He's preparing for another strike, when Xander extends his command of this place over the eyes and sense. The world goes dark. Billy stands ready. Steady. Controlled. He can hear others crying out. Finally he surges - Xander's blow crunches into his Etone defenses and sends Billy bouncing, flipping end over end to land harshly on his feet and knees. He huffs a breath as the spell ends.
"My faith," he answers Eleanor. "My hope. It seems like every turn I take they both lose standing. Every inch of this foundation was rotten, it seems... But..."
He flicks his ether guns out and levels them both at Xander, barrel to barrel, both of them crackling together exposed to one another. "That does not make the lives I've saved a lie!" The ether guns resonate together, a core of darkness forming at the intersection of their barrels, sparking and crackling with something unseen. Then, gold within...
The Etone emblem. It is Ether; constructed by Billy's own will, no Sign of Granas. It shines gold for several long moments before a stream of light rains down on Xander, scarring and pure!
GS: MYSTIC ARTE! Billy Lee Black has attacked Xander Lovell with Holy Gate! GS: Billy Lee Black has gained 1 Combo! GS: Cover expired! GS: Billy Lee Black has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Shige Kiwako has posed.
Shige Kiwako shifts her focus back to Xander at his comment. She'd not intentionally addressed him, but he has his own views on it! "No." That's a simple refutation of the idea that death is death and that's it. She can't help, but feel like he's in the same territory as the corrupted dragons. She can't fully feel anger at that. She'd even gone out of her way to learn about them. To document their stories so that the happier memories could be remembered and the warnings laid out bare.
She lifts the lantern, spreading that spooky light around, "No. You leave behind so much when you go on the last journey. Whether you need a guide's help to find that path or not." She hesitated in saying that. A simple 'You're wrong.' would have been more apt maybe. Pushing through her own thoughts and memories clambering their way to the surface with the thoughts of just wholesale slaughter in the name of, what? She doesn't even know. She scowls and lifts her chin again, set to help the others stop this
Her response to Eleanor is quieter. More neutral after a moment, or at least forced that way. "Then we'll do what we have to." Said in a way that suggests something other than the group gathered. She doesn't speak for them.
The looming darkness drowns out everything. Even the ghostly origin of her light muted. Lifted to the air, she starts to draw the shadows around herself. One trying in vain to manifest long enough to catch the blade. Too late, or too little manifest energy. Shige turns, all, but ready to try and do whatever was necessary before being blinded by another sudden shift in the light.
She finds her attempts to dodge away on instinct had been predicted this time and feels the bite of a blade buried deep. She staggers, grip wavering on the lantern briefly before she forces herself to stand up again. Even with that shaking grip, free hand gripping her side. The red light getting her to turn her eyes away briefly. "I've been here before." she says, trying to sound confident in herself.
She stands up straight and spreads that blue light around. Trying to bring light back. Her shades spreading across the cathedral. The sounds of some long gone pub near the ocean. Better times, something personal to the feline and a suggestion to why she holds so tight to those ideals. There's a comfort to them through the magic.
GS: Shige Kiwako has attacked Dean Stark with Rousing Spirits! GS: Shige Kiwako has attacked Hannah Curie with Rousing Spirits! GS: Shige Kiwako has attacked Ruth Pauling with Rousing Spirits! GS: Shige Kiwako has attacked Eleanor Klein with Rousing Spirits! GS: Shige Kiwako has attacked Redi Hayworth with Rousing Spirits! GS: Shige Kiwako has attacked Shige Kiwako with Rousing Spirits! GS: Shige Kiwako has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Rousing Spirits! GS: Shige Kiwako has gained 2 Combo! GS: Lock state expired! GS: Shige Kiwako has completed her action. GS: Shige Kiwako heals Ruth Pauling! She gains 189 temporary hit points! GS: Regen applied to Ruth Pauling! GS: CRITICAL! Shige Kiwako heals Shige Kiwako! She gains 246 temporary hit points! GS: Regen applied to Shige Kiwako! GS: FP up! Gleam activated! GS: Shige Kiwako heals Dean Stark! He gains 190 temporary hit points! GS: Regen applied to Dean Stark! GS: Shige Kiwako heals Avril Vent Fleur! She gains 194 temporary hit points! GS: Regen applied to Avril Vent Fleur! GS: Shige Kiwako heals Eleanor Klein! She gains 210 temporary hit points! GS: Regen applied to Eleanor Klein! GS: Shige Kiwako heals Hannah Curie! She gains 196 temporary hit points! GS: Regen applied to Hannah Curie! GS: Riley Arwell used Defend! He takes Dean Stark's Javelin Bullet attack on Xander Lovell on himself! GS: Redi Hayworth accepts Shige Kiwako's Rousing Spirits for 0 hit points! GS: Regen applied to Redi Hayworth! GS: FP up! Sufferer activated! GS: Xander Lovell solidly guards Billy Lee Black's Holy Gate for 134 hit points! GS: Strain! Billy Lee Black takes 119 damage!
<Pose Tracker> Xander Lovell has posed.
It's easy for Xander to speak even as he darts about the battlefield, his voice as misdirected as his position. He can speak from one end, and attack from another. Is this dark magic, or a more simple trick of knowing how to throw his voice?
Redi unfortunately knows a thing or two about unfairness. "You may not want it, but that's the unfair part, isn't it? You don't get to choose what shape your curse is going to take. If you could... it wouldn't be a curse."
Ruzhen respects him. And she has his, though he'll not say that today, if he ever does. But what he will do is say a little more than he might otherwise: "...The condition would be his death," Xander says. And isn't it interesting how it's always about Riley losing his life? Not his own. Xander is painfully honest. But we'll get to that.
Hicalu yells and screams and there is so much pain. "It just takes," is all Xander replies.
Under the rain, Ruth speaks of love. A world of pain versus a world of love. Ruth sees too much through Xander. Always. Is it why her bullets always strike him true? Straight to his chest, where his heart is, burrowing past unnatural defenses and drawing fresh blood. It spills to the earth. Flowers bloom from it.
Forgiveness is not something you ask for, Yulie says. Xander scoffs. "...If that's your conviction." Who is he to tell her it's wasted on him? She must do as she does, same as him.
Hannah stammers under Xander's stinging words. He looks back at her a strange softness. This is not somethiing he says because he thinks it's fun to imagine it in petty bitterness. It's just where everything might go. "...And I'm using mine to protect right now." He is what she vows not to become.
But Ida cries out for Eleanor. It's them, or it's Riley. Xander reminds himself that. Action speaks for him, just as it will speak for Ida.
As for the extent of the rot, Xander not have that answer to give. But Billy says something... striking. The lives Billy saved were not a lie. Is that shock in this aspirant god's eye? What nerve was struck?
Shige strikes another. Xander growls in the darkness. "And I said... we're not dead yet."
Xander is not the only one fighting for someone he cares for. Dean and Avril may not have the same relationship, but that doesn't mean a weaker bond. And Dean... Dean tries to strike where it hurts, pointing out how the Fangs have been at odds since the curse took them. "You're right," Xander says, very simply and without hesitation. "Because I don't care if I become something he can't love, or if I make him hate me. All I care about is that he's still here to keep being himself. He can't be happy if he's dead. But... I want us to be here, with the time fight and argue, to learn all the things I still don't know about him. And as we live and change, there's always something new... Even now, him pushing back against this, that he he wants to preserve you, to protect this world he sings all his little songs about... I love that, too."
The attack ends, but the darkness does not. Xander steps from the dark, and looks back at Riley with his outburst. He sighs, but there's a faint smile there, which is certainly unusual enough. It's almost like... he's happy. "You don't have to agree to it. You don't have to do anything. Let me take care of you." He offers his hand. "All you have to do is to stay with me. However brief, or however eternal. Whatever the pain. Whatever the sorrow. Whatever the strife."
There isn't really any time for Riley to take Xander's hand before the counterattacks begin.
A crimson shadow star blasts into Xander's body, knocking him off balance and sizzling at him with a strange darkpower like but so unlike his own. What Ruzhen does not see, she Sees and her bullet flies true, striking Xander straight in the throat, bullet only partially stopped by the wrap around of corrupted thorns. He coughs, blood splattering like a mirror of her own.
A Dark Devourer tries to Devour the Devourer. Xander reels back, caught in the position of his own kind of trick, which is the worst kind of position to be in. He winces, biting down as if in symapthy, and claws into the demon to rip himself free, leg torn and bleeding. In contrast, Billy's gun opens with an Etone symbol. Granas is dead. Granas is not here. But Billy is, and those who will act in Granas' faith. The symbol means nothing to Xander, and that light does not burn his flesh... His flesh burns because of Billy's own convictions, tearing a raw wround across the cursed Claw of a limb, purifying scales away.
As it happens, Xander is familiar with Guardians insomuch as he's been in the presence of one before. He is immediately aware, on edge, growling low like an animal. Whatever instinct is in him now seems keen to fight for territory against this beast, lunging, his strikes useless against that which will become wind while he is gored on horns and talons.
Dean and Avril join together, trying to strike at Xander with the combined force -- but Xander does not take that one alone. For all of Dean's shouting that they are at odds, in this attack they share the pain of it. "R-Riley...--" A choked sound, thanks to Ruzhen's strike. He is cut off.
Ida's strike carries her resolve, and carries Xander up in the air. He sails back down, landing on Hannah's earth as it pierces into his shoulder and fixes him in place. Eleanor raises, radiant and transcendent. Xander sets himself with resolve, fangs bared, prepared for whatever she might do --
Anything except that. There really is a very critical weakness Xander has. He wears it so openly. The moment Xander sees the flames and knows where they'll go -- everywhere -- Xander tears himself from he spike of earth and throws himself at Riley. Possessed by dark powers, brimming with ambition, but still only ever with the one singular thought, taking the brunt of the flames, hissing and trying not to cry out as divine fire ravages him. Hannah's raw fire, elemental and surging with rage, join in this dance of heat.
It all ravages the overgrowth around them. It burns away thorns and flowers leaving nothing behind. It burns away Xander's protective armor, leaving him singed against his skin where holes have burned in his stolen robes.
Slowly, Xander lifts himself up from Riley to look over the battlefield. It's brightened by Light, burned in flame. His own body badly battered and bleeding. Whatever transformations he called hare gone, merely fanged and slightly clawed, for the parts he has devoured.
He stands up, his grey eye like steel.
"I respect the effort. Maybe what you all say about Granas is true." He smiles a smile that doesn't look at all like a smile. "I'll remember that."
From scorched earth between broken marble, thorns and flowers rip free again. Claws like the risen dead emerge. More of the floor cracks and tears apart. From the pillars, from the ceiling, overgrowth roils, feeding on blood and darkness. Xander's, their own, anything it can find as a new, horrible jungle is born, oppressive. It is a preview: the world, devoured in violence, decayed and regrown into something bright, vibrant, and chaotic.
And in this burst of live and unlife, in this massive flowers and the flytraps and the sticky sundews, in thorns and in brambles, it is impossible to see the Fangs.
Under the cover of dark sorcery, Xander takes Riley and disappears from the cathedral.
GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Redi Hayworth with Garden of Nightmares! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Yulie Ahtreide with Garden of Nightmares! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Hicalu Wilwisp with Garden of Nightmares! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Billy Lee Black with Garden of Nightmares! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Eleanor Klein with Garden of Nightmares! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Avril Vent Fleur with Garden of Nightmares! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Dean Stark with Garden of Nightmares! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ruth Pauling with Garden of Nightmares! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Ida Everstead-Rey with Garden of Nightmares! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Hannah Curie with Garden of Nightmares! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Shige Kiwako with Garden of Nightmares! GS: Xander Lovell has attacked Li Ruzhen with Garden of Nightmares! GS: Xander Lovell has gained 1 Combo! GS: Redi Hayworth critically guards Xander Lovell's Garden of Nightmares for 0 hit points! GS: Redi Hayworth's Break Ward may block the effect! GS: Redi Hayworth's Mute Ward may block the effect! GS: Break, Cripple, Hex, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken blocked! GS: FP up! Arcane Font, Reaction bonus, and Sufferer activated! GS: Redi Hayworth enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Dean Stark solidly guards Xander Lovell's Garden of Nightmares for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Dean Stark gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Break, Cripple, Hex, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Dean Stark! GS: FP up! Reaction bonus activated! GS: Yulie Ahtreide critically guards Xander Lovell's Garden of Nightmares for 0 hit points! GS: Yulie Ahtreide's Jam Ward may block the effect! GS: Break, Cripple, Hex, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken blocked! GS: Ruth Pauling has activated Force Action: Guard! GS: Ruth Pauling critically guards Xander Lovell's Garden of Nightmares for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Ruth Pauling gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Break, Cripple, Hex, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken blocked! GS: Billy Lee Black suffers a terrible blow from Xander Lovell's Garden of Nightmares for 0 hit points! GS: Break, Cripple, Hex, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Billy Lee Black! GS: Eleanor Klein solidly guards Xander Lovell's Garden of Nightmares for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Eleanor Klein gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Eleanor Klein's Mute Ward may block the effect! GS: Break, Hex, Jam, and Slow applied to Eleanor Klein! GS: Cripple, Mute, and Weaken blocked! GS: Healthy! For entering Condition Green, Eleanor Klein receives 100 temporary hit points. GS: Eleanor Klein enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey solidly guards Xander Lovell's Garden of Nightmares for 0 hit points! GS: Ida Everstead-Rey's Cripple Ward may block the effect! GS: Break, Hex, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Ida Everstead-Rey! GS: Cripple blocked! GS: CRITICAL! Hicalu Wilwisp takes a glancing hit from Xander Lovell's Garden of Nightmares for 0 hit points! GS: Break, Cripple, Hex, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Hicalu Wilwisp! GS: Avril Vent Fleur has activated Force Action: Accelerate! GS: Avril Vent Fleur takes a glancing hit from Xander Lovell's Garden of Nightmares for 0 hit points! GS: Break, Cripple, Hex, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Avril Vent Fleur! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Reaction bonus activated! GS: CRITICAL! Li Ruzhen solidly guards Xander Lovell's Garden of Nightmares for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Li Ruzhen gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Break, Cripple, Hex, Jam, Mute, Slow, and Weaken applied to Li Ruzhen! GS: FP up! Arcane Font, Reaction bonus, and Gleam activated! GS: Shige Kiwako suffers a terrible blow from Xander Lovell's Garden of Nightmares for 0 hit points! GS: Shige Kiwako's Mute Ward may block the effect! GS: Break, Cripple, Hex, Jam, Slow, and Weaken applied to Shige Kiwako! GS: Mute blocked! GS: FP up! Arcane Font and Gleam activated! GS: Hannah Curie solidly guards Xander Lovell's Garden of Nightmares for 0 hit points! GS: Reaction switch bonus! Hannah Curie gains 1 additional Combo! GS: Hannah Curie's Mute Ward may block the effect! GS: Hannah Curie's Weaken Ward may block the effect! GS: Break, Cripple, Hex, Jam, and Slow applied to Hannah Curie! GS: Mute and Weaken blocked! GS: FP up! Arcane Font activated!
<Pose Tracker> Riley Arwell has posed.
Hicalu seems to lose his grip on reality. Riley doesn't understand his words, but there's a twist of guilt to be part of the situation that has pushed him to this state. "We're not going to destroy everything, I pro-- I'll make sure of it--!" What in the world -- did he just summon some kind of dark entity?!
Hannah echoes what everyone seems to be telling Riley -- that Xander can't be talked out of this. Riley's expression hardens. "Glad I'm surrounded by so many experts on Xander's heart." Like they've got any incentive to try to talk him out of it? The Fangs were a lost cause to most of them for killing anybody to live. Now that the stakes are everybody, that surely just makes it easier to justify taking them out.
Dean comes to Riley's defense to Xander... sort of... and Riley makes some uncomfortable noises in the background like he disagrees with some of it but doesn't want to refute the parts of it he does agree with. "It isn't sad...!" he finally protests. "Our communication is great! Sometimes we just happen to disagree publicly on life-or-death matters while a lot of people are trying to kill us and it's hard to have a normal conversation and makes us look like we don't have our shit together!"
Riley's angry shovel bonk cracks Dean soundly in the skull and Riley recoils a little, wincing on his behalf. "I'm sorry--don't drop dead from that, please...!"
Xander has his own words to speak to Dean, and they're more... heartfelt, even poetic. The words bring a heat to Riley's face, and he is struck again by how Xander does seem different. A calm certainty. Not that being certain in the face of resistance is anything new for him, but it seems to have reached a whole new level. Has he ever spoken so plainly about his feelings in front of other people like this...? It borders on unnerving... but at the same time, he doesn't dislike it. There's a kind of fascination in it. He's caught wordlessly for a moment as Xander offers his hand... but then the intensity of the battle resumes, with the fury of everyone's desperation to save the world from the rise of Valmar concentrated upon Xander.
Dean has not dropped dead -- he's still lively enough, in fact, to open fire at Xander. Xander has already taken a worrying amount of punishment, and Riley is close enough to do something about it in this case. So he once again intercepts, what little was left of his plant shield getting blasted apart as he raises his arms to keep the worst of the explosion off his face and torso. Xander calls for him, taking Avril's attack at the same time. "I'm here...!"
Eleanor has said she doesn't want to kill them, just to seal them... but what has the difference been, whenever anyone has tried? Any purification magic has burned like it's killing them... And the way she speaks about regretting her mercy toward them... like they were some kind of vermin she was too softhearted to stamp out... it stings. He's the one who talked to her as if he expected to die... maybe she took him at his word that it was time for them to leave the world and it's just not something that can be taken back anymore. She summons a purifying flame. Riley's eyes widen in fear as it burst forth in an expanding dome -- and Xander pushes in front to take the blow. No, no, that's WORSE. Xander, don't be burned!! "Xander!!"
He reaches for him, and tries to position himself protectively around him, too little and too late.
But Xander has steel left in him yet, and summons a chaos of wild plant growth to conceal them from the Drifters' eyes. With that, Riley finally gets his wish, and the two of them disappear from the battlefield.
But as for Riley's deeper wish of convincing Xander to leave this path he's chosen... does anyone really believe he can achieve that, even Riley?
<Pose Tracker> Redi Hayworth has posed.
The fiery blast throws Redi back from Xander. Her staff slams into the ground, dragging over the earth -- and her pale blue eyes watch, as she hears Hicalu speak. Who...
Who is he talking about?
Hicalu's Dark Devourer makes her gasp, softly -- but she's grateful for the barrage of attacks. Eleanor's brilliant light; Ruzhen's shot; Ruth's plea.
The sudden, terrible talons that slash down as something like Guardian is given form -- a construct of light, raking across Xander. Redi stares for a moment -- then realization sets in. She heard that voice; she turns, looking at Yulie, and she stares for a moment. Fire and sparks crackle all around her.
"Yulie..." she manages, her voice quiet.
Shige's blue light shines over her. The sound of the ocean is far from her ears, right now. Better memories slip through her fingers. The light shines over her, but it's pushed back before it can sink into her.
She looks back at Xander -- as he grabs Riley -- and sees the way the cathedral is torn into and torn apart by flowers, thorns, and vines. She backs away, just before some get too close -- and those that do begin to burn.
Because the night's flame is still burning around her.
She watches, as the Fangs are swept away, together. The things Xander said linger; the way that Riley seemed so happy, the other day, when he talked about them. Redi watches, silently, a moment longer.
What happens when someone decides there is no place for her in this world? Redi reaches a hand up, dragging it across her face. She takes a steadying breath, before she lowers it. She can't quite make herself look at Eleanor or Ruzhen, even after they expressed concern.
She won'tlook at Hicalu. She can't dare meet Yulie's eyes.
"This... this takes awhile to stop," Redi stammers out. "I--I'll... I better go."
She hurries for the door to the cathedral, thorns and ashen floor broken under her boots as she walks. Her blue hat is forgotten, left laying where she dropped it.
<Pose Tracker> Eleanor Klein has posed.
Ruth... will be worthy of it. That lingers, for Eleanor, as she goes about the battlefield. She worries for Redi. She worries for more. But...
But BIlly. "You're right. Those lives mean something. ...Your Light is radiant, Brother Black. No matter where it came from..."
"Where it passes, the world will be better for it."
But still, they fight. Eleanor hears herself. An older Eleanor, but recognizeably Eleanor. And the way that Xander loves Riley...
She cannot say much. But she knows, in the moment, that Xander will choose to defend Riley. A part of her is able to make that calculation. She has said it--she will not mistake pity for wisdom again.
....Even so, she mourns.
She looks, as Xander stands. THe 'effort'. But Eleanor knows, from what 'she' told herself....
No. She cannot defeat him today.
Eleanor cannot see anything in this horrid jungle. "I..."
The robes fade into her ordinary, bloodstained clothes again. She stops glowing. And she looks down, at the jungle before her.
"...A wedding... witnessed by frogs," Eleanor says, softly. She remembers. The joy there was in that moment, despite everything...
A part of her wishes she'd taken his cursed candy.
But the rest of her...
She watches Redi go. She looks to everyone else.
"Let's..."
"Let's get out of here," Eleanor says, authority entering her voice as a leader in ARMS. "Everyone..."
The cathedral is lost. The people have been saved as much as is possible. But...
Eleanor starts to go, and finds, to her surprise, that she doesn't cry after all. She doesn't walk quickly, though.
"...Ida," she says. "Ida..."
"You're not a monster," she tells her friend. "I know you said that earlier. But you're not."
"...And neither are you, Hannah."
She doesn't cry. For now.
But she's so, so very tired.
<Pose Tracker> Hicalu Wilwisp has posed.
"Don't! Leave him alone!" Hicalu cries out, as Xander declares that it just takes. Riley says they won't destroy everything, and he responds, still raving: "Don't make him do it! Everything-- everything's on fire--!! Why is this...?!"
There's no fire. Or is he still thinking of the heat coming off of Redi?
"No! Don't do it! Shalecru...!"
The garden tears at him, even as he tries to flee from the vines; finally he trips, and falls, and does not rise.
It wasn't the flowers which knocked him unconscious, but...
... he's out cold.
Better get him to an inn.
<Pose Tracker> Shige Kiwako has posed.
Shige Kiwako hesitates, frustrated. She sometimes veers into fatalism herself and tries to steer others away from it. That it got doglegged each time was-. She hops back yet again, wincing at the movement and cursing her instincts. The lantern is lowered with the pair's departure.
"I.. think if I'm going to keep putting my foot in it I should get to know things better." She says that to no one in particular. An admonition of herself? Though she turns her head back as though listening to something.
"Does anyone need help still?" She asks, turning to look at the others rather than responding to the suggestion only she heard. "I can help." She might try to visit someone to ask for details rather than just.. roaming. Get more involved, she can't just drift, despite the name.
There is an agreement from Shige at the comment that Ruth isn't a monster. She doesn't know the woman super well, but.. they have chatted more than once.
Whether the living need help or not, the sole dead member of the cathedral, slain before she'd even gotten there is given her focus. Stopping to try and see if there's any chance of rescue. Then-.. she stops short of doing any rites. It's a church, they have theres and she does glance back to Billy before any other actions are taken. Stepping back before she offends the living, or the spirit should it be around. She's there to help if needed though. She'll catch up later if she can find an excuse for it!
<Pose Tracker> Ruth Pauling has posed.
Ruth lets out another monstrous hiss-filled screech as Xander and Riley pull themselves away. Her rifle's bayonet blade gets to slicing, slashing, sorrow-powered discordance finding ventilation - if never truly resolution - visiting violence against the visions of maws, brambles, this singular look into a world that would exist only for these two lovers. The ache that gnaws on mind, heart, and soul alike about how those so suffused in love would also be so much in the Darkness.
Whether illusion or truth in the composition of these awful expressions of Valmar's endless desire to devour and unmake, the Hellion doesn't allow herself to be held by them anew.
...
Her path of destruction and resistance sees her come to a stop facing down to the Songstress who has been on her seat and edging away for some time, surrounded by so much she does not, and can not, understand.
"Stay away," she stammers. She doesn't have to be Resonant to know. The way Ruth's bearing looks doesn't match the quiet, patient, even kindly soul she wanted to believe she was. She almost meets Ruth's eyes.
The Hellion flinches, averting a violent response to it by the narrowest of margins as she scrapes the blade of her bayonet against what survives of the marble floor to spark flames. Her tongue flicks, a nonsensical action if one can't see her true shape.
The Songstress finds a pew upright enough for balance, turns tail, and runs from her - from everyone. No set of thanks, no relief, just pure fear of things she wasn't ready to see or understand.
...She looks to the rosary still clinging to her. She squeezes her right hand into a fist, and it just digs into her arm. Teasing, as if she could flex it apart... but it clings. Is it Malevolence's doing?
The rain around Ruth picks up to summon a fog, and moments later, she takes her leave. An emotional nerve pinched, from when she heard that church bell ring when she deserted the Etones in 495 over her failing shoulder.
In a way, following Redi's lead subcosciously.
<Pose Tracker> Li Ruzhen has posed.
Hicalu's desperate cries seem to suggest some context that Ruzhen herself doesn't understand; something... between them? But-- more terrifyingly, he invokes a dark incantation, one that also tears open a space that brings a demon from hell--
Just how many people here are cursed with demonic power?
She's not even critical; it just feels like something that happens over and over again. The courier girl, him...
But she doesn't have long to ponder on it, because Yulie's invocation of Code F suddenly has her agitated -- something within her is calling, to Yulie's nanomachines!
"Gh-- ghahh-- What is...? Yulie?"
A Guardian is manifest -- no, something still appears to be strange with it. Is this what she was talking about? What the White Orphanage was seeking, all this time? Why... all that suffering, all that death, for-- for--
Dean has the level head on their relationship, and Xander answers quietly that the condition would be Riley's death. Always, Riley's death... not his own...
"... the boy's words are more cutting than I could manage, honestly," Ruzhen shakes her head, weakened, but their combined efforts aren't enough; Riley counterattacks with claws like the risen dead, thorns and flowers rippling at them, trapping them in a garden of nightmares.
Trapping the sinner...
Ruzhen listens, as Riley insists they have great communication. It's true that this isn't the greatest arena for this matter, but... the matter was already forced in hand.
Ruzhen peers towards Ruth, reflecting on her words earlier. To be worthy for the love of one... she inhales quietly, trying to suppress the broken, bloody coughs and centre herself. The two left...
"I-- hey-- look after your friend--!" Ruzhen can't stop Redi from rushing out, wincing as she looks to Hicalu as he cries out and collapses.
She looks weakly to Yulie.
"We'd... best get everyone with a pulse to safety," she murmurs, helping the poor Fennec onto her shoulder. "And then... ... ..."
"I think I'm due for a cigarette..."
<Pose Tracker> Yulie Ahtreide has posed.
Redi... Ruzhen... The summoning hasn't gone unnoticed. Yulie flinches... but if she lets it get to her now, she runs the risk of losing control.
...That's the last thing any of them need in this situation.
'If that's your conviction.' Yulie nods. ...In the end, that's all that needs to pass between them. And in the end - Yulie shields her eyes, as dark sorcery obscues everything. Thorns and flowers and claws tear the world apart.
It's just a preview, and the world soon clears... but when it does, the Fangs are gone.
She looks toward Redi. ...Redi can't meet her eyes - and Yulie can't meet hers. Yulie opens her mouth to speak - but words don't come out... and by the time she regains herself, Redi is gone...
She's quiet for a moment... and in silence she walks over to the forgotten blue hat, leaning down to pick it up... She stares at it for a moment, holding it carefully - before looking up to Ruzhen, moving to support Hicalu.
...It hasn't escaped her notice that Ruzhen isn't doing so great, either. Yulie hurries over, moving to help steady her as she lifts Hicalu. She can't heal Ruzhen, and she's not strong enough to help her carry Hicalu, either - this is the best she can do, right now.
"Right..." Yulie agrees with a nod, looking out toward everyone.
<Pose Tracker> Billy Lee Black has posed.
Under the final deployment of vibrant sorcery, Xander and Riley flee. This one DOES take, and Billy can only drop to his knees and try to fend it off with his faith and light. It's some minutes before he emerges. He doesn't keep any BLADES on him other than a simple pocket knife, so he's having a hell of a time with the death blossoms here, but he gets himself through eventually. There's a few BANG BANGs as he puts a flytrap down like a dog. He finds himself looking at Eleanor as they gather, slumping against a damaged pillar. "Yes," he says, and with the battle over he releases some of the composure that let him stand so firm against the chimera of Xander. "I just wish I didn't have to make so much of it myself," he sighs. and puts his head back against a remaining smooth section of stonework.
"I'll...tend to the injured in a moment," he promises, breathing pained.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
The Cathedral is just a place. The people are what matter. But as Xander's garden takes root, her guts twist, and bile rises in her throat. Is this what it feels like to see something defiled? The martial artist sinks to her knees, clutching her wounded shoulder. Beneath her, moss creeps across the cobbles, colored in streaks of crimson and quicksilver--the colors of the blood it's drinking from pools on the tile.
"Mama," Ida whispers, tears slicking her eyes--more from sudden, choking grief than the haze of acrid pollen.
Eleanor is there. Ida rises, wipes at her eyes, and looks at her. The awkwardness is plain in Ida's eyes, like she's halfway between the woman Eleanor knows and a frightened child who woke up after a nightmare. She reaches out a hand, seems to think better of it, and--
If Eleanor doesn't have any objection, Ida pulls her into a hug, gentle as she can manage, and cries.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
"Dean!"
Now it's her turn, as Riley comes for him with the shovel.
It never was fair. And it's true that the world often is not fair, in precisely the grim sort of picture that Xander points out to another: one never gets to pick with what they are afflicted. But even if it is unfair to them, she cannot permit it.
And perhaps the greater kindness that can be bestowed is--
Avril leads, with Dean following the path she (metaphorically, this time) carves open for him. But Riley, again, steps in to shield Xander. Even if she knows that what impels him is much the same as what impels Xander, the realization that comes with witnessing it is still a shock for her: she widens her eyes and takes that one step backwards.
But still, Xander respects their effort. Avril, shifting her stance, brandishes her sword. Again, the hilt boasts a proper blade--
For all the good that it does against the calvacade of chaos and violence and darkness flung forth by Xander's garden as the place seems fit to tear itself apart. This could be a prelude to the world's end itself: Avril hacks at what she can with her blade, but there is so much more she cannot reach and cannot cut down.
Then everything at once is still. The cathedral hall seems nearly in ruins as Avril rises to her feet in the unearthly quiet that follows. "Dean," she starts quietly, much as others similarly are checking in each other. "Are you alright?"
Her gaze tracks Eleanor as she begins to hand out orders and Avril glances at Dean. "She is right. We should leave, and take with us any who cannot walk."
It's but a drop in the bucket. Yet, what more can they hope for right now?
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
Xander has a funny definition of 'protect', one that involves invoking the Day of Darkness all for Riley's sake. Hannah doesn't have an answer for that.
But she does have one for Riley. "Do you know what's in his heart, goin' through all this?" Intending to become a god... Honestly.
That should be some damn red flags right there.
But more vines and vegetation erupt all around them, and Hannah tiredly summons up more flames with a breath to stry and stem the tide, but with the fangs gone and the cathedral trashed... Hannah soon gives up on that effort, just making sure that the path out is clear enough.
Her shoulders sag and she hunches over. Her own aura grows still, once the fighting stops, and instead she just looks tired and weary. She looks around at those in distress, sorrow, or just plain injured. She watches Redi go with concern but also... something of a recognition of a kindred spirit. An out of control aura, that will take time to dissipate, a curse turning her into... something...
Zephyr swoops down to land on Hannah's shoulder, chirping at her consolingly. "Thanks" comes the muted reply.
She looks to Eleanor as she reassures her she's not a monster... and nods numbly to that. She wants to believe Hannah but... she clearly has concerns or doubts. Xander couldn't know, but he struck a very old and deep nerve within her, and it's going to take... some considerable time to get over that.
She carefully picks her way through the debris and rubble, making her way to Eleanor as she's heading out. Hannah leans in against her side, briefly, giving her a one-armed sideways hug before pulling away again. (Purely for Eleanor's sake, she knows how important it is to her to maintain propriety.)
"Thanks," comes the soft reply.
But Ida apparently needs a hug and a cry, and though she goes for Eleanor, Hannah is quick to join in, too. She's too numb for tears, but... she will gladly help bear Ida's, for the moment.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Riley at least didn't mean to hit Dean quite that hard with that shovel. Dean will forgive him for that, too.
"I-I'm okay," he reassures Riley, even, when Riley frets over him dying over that hit, and never mind that Xander will kill them all if he has his way. Maybe Riley will get to choose to spare them if it all works out the way he wants?
Xander tells him he's right, because he doesn't care how Riley feels about him as long as he can otherwise be happy. 'He can't be happy if he's dead.' "I don't think he'll be happy if you're dead, either," Dean points out--but he's more subdued about that now. After all, Xander is pushing that conclusion pretty hard now.
Riley protests that it's not sad, that their communication is great, and they just happen to have loud public disagreements over whether or not the world should end. "It's sad to me," Dean replies, "but if it's not sad to you, then..."
He doesn't know how to end that sentence. If it isn't sad to Riley, then that doesn't actually make it okay. It doesn't make any of them feel better when his and Avril's Javelin Bullet strike Xander and Riley both; it isn't any better as everyone's attacks pour in until Eleanor casts her blinding light, burning away darkness and plantlife--until it all savagely bursts through stone and earth anew, and Xander flees with Riley in tow to somewhere the others can't chase.
"..." Dean looks over at Avril and gives her a little nod. "I'll have a headache for a while, but I've been hit harder," he reassures her. Shige's healing magic helps a lot on that mark, too. "I'm more worried about you... but I guess that goes for both of us, huh?" He raises his gaze to the air. "And for them, too."
A brief pause. He looks over at Ida as she wraps Eleanor in a hug and a cry, as Hannah joins in. He looks over at Hicalu, ranting and collapsing, and Redi, who apparently is bearing up under their own curse too. Like Ruzhen, he reflects on how many people seem to have that problem.
But Eleanor is right, and so is Avril. "Yeah," he replies. "Let's do what we can."
Dean might not be able to help out with any curses. But he'll still help out where he can.